Review: Antonio Adriano Puleo at Cherry and Martin Gallery
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Long before paintings became objects that people could hang in their homes after transporting them from an artist’s studio, they were part of the architecture of the church, castle or cave for which they were made. At the newly relocated Cherry and Martin Gallery, Antonio Adriano Puleo takes visitors back to those times, when painting, sculpture and architecture were all of a piece and formed a total environment.
Neither sentimental nor nostalgic, Puleo is not interested in turning back the clock. His bold orchestrations of shapes and forms are as futuristic and radical as they are alert to the world beyond the rather antiseptic space in which art ordinarily is exhibited.
In a typical Puleo painting, space is made physical. It is built from simple geometric shapes, like triangles, squares and rectangles, in screeching, fluorescent colors and resplendent ochers, golds and greens. All are accented by thick black and white bands, swirling, atmospheric passages and slick, wood-veneer finishes.
Space is then splintered. Some sections are pushed into the distance and others are pulled forward, like a Hans Hofmann painting on acid. Super-realistic images of birds, some cut from Audubon books and others from reproductions of medieval manuscripts, contrast dramatically with the abstract shapes, fracturing space further.
Finally, the fragments are reconfigured, locked into place by the kinky symmetry of Puleo’s uncanny design work. And that’s just the beginning.
Puleo also paints the gallery walls in patterns that play off those in his mural-size canvases and panels. In front of them, he installs pyramid-shaped sculptures made of wood and stained glass and illuminated from within.
The result is wacky and satisfying, an ambitious installation that makes strange bedfellows of Baroque cathedrals and American Minimalism while recalling Egyptian hieroglyphics, medieval symbols and amped-to-the-max camouflage. Puleo never tells you what to think of what you see, but his art makes you see everything differently.
-- David Pagel
Cherry and Martin, 2712 S. La Cienega Blvd., L.A., (310) 559-0100, through June 27. Closed Sundays and Mondays.
Above: ‘Vox Humana,’ oil, acrylic, enamel, paper, ink, watercolor, gold leaf, papyrus, linen and collage on canvas on panel. Credit: Robert Wedemeyer / Cherry and Martin Gallery