The matter between our ears pulses with neural electricity, charged by excitations of color and shadow. Visual experience is localized in our cognition- color is registered in one location, line and depth in another. I directly stimulate these processing regions of the brain. I build paintings from back to front in a process of strict accounting: I mix gradients in sequences of varying hue, value, and saturation. I then apply tape and masking fluid to canvas to create networks of thin stripes that intersect at slanting angles. The color-modulated lines weave together and produce animated patterns that simultaneously recall cabaret curtains, a stovetop flame, and the spectral vibrancy of the aurora borealis.
These paintings flicker between the theatrical and the organic: they direct focus to individual moments of color immersed in a system that resembles camouflage. This duality is a magic trick; looking closely, you see fine intersecting lines that create narrow diamonds of hue. Step back, and the composition coalesces into a spread of sensations that is fixed, fluid and warped. My paintings are windows of uncanny atmosphere, a glimpse of churning chroma and interference pattern.
I paint because visual sensation is psychophysical- it transforms our thoughts. The tension that links granular color experience and optical illusion generates questions about self-understanding. Our minds alone are the site of ecstasy and suffering, a lesson I internalized while working as an overnight operator on a suicide hotline. Coping with trauma, panic, and dissociation is a matter of proximity to the event. The way we decode percepts— received environmental data about what is happening— is a high stakes affair. Each move in my paintings is tightly controlled. when the final mask is taken off, however, the particular consequence of each decision is striking and unforeseen. This mystery compels me. Science, politics and technology recount an ever-narrowing view of what it means to be human, pulling our attention from one algorithmically engineered solution to the next. My paintings entice the eye into new, uncertain spaces.
-Alex Puz, 2021
These paintings flicker between the theatrical and the organic: they direct focus to individual moments of color immersed in a system that resembles camouflage. This duality is a magic trick; looking closely, you see fine intersecting lines that create narrow diamonds of hue. Step back, and the composition coalesces into a spread of sensations that is fixed, fluid and warped. My paintings are windows of uncanny atmosphere, a glimpse of churning chroma and interference pattern.
I paint because visual sensation is psychophysical- it transforms our thoughts. The tension that links granular color experience and optical illusion generates questions about self-understanding. Our minds alone are the site of ecstasy and suffering, a lesson I internalized while working as an overnight operator on a suicide hotline. Coping with trauma, panic, and dissociation is a matter of proximity to the event. The way we decode percepts— received environmental data about what is happening— is a high stakes affair. Each move in my paintings is tightly controlled. when the final mask is taken off, however, the particular consequence of each decision is striking and unforeseen. This mystery compels me. Science, politics and technology recount an ever-narrowing view of what it means to be human, pulling our attention from one algorithmically engineered solution to the next. My paintings entice the eye into new, uncertain spaces.
-Alex Puz, 2021