Adams Puryear “Secret Wars 4.1”

Calico

[Image: ones that never meet- products of the same body that let them gain what is needed and be patiently destroyed by circumstance, 2016 ceramic, plaster, polymer clay, appropriated objects, paint, and synthetic polymeric material, 73 x 25 x 26 in.]

This event has ended.

Adams Puryear utilizes the Internet’s frenzied visual clutter and embraces the absurdity of culture’s information overload. Working with a diverse range of materials, found objects, and visual references, the artist processes the less manicured digital world - a tween’s Tumblr page or the rabbit-hole of Google image search - into his overtly tactile sculptures.

For Puryear’s solo exhibition at Calico, Secret Wars 4.1, the artist continues a previous narrative based on a comic book of the same name. This dated comic brings divergent characters together for battle but the plot quickly loses integrity and lapses into confusion. The installation narrative continues this digression, positioning each sculpture for confrontation. However, the actual confrontation never takes place and instead each sculpture oozes a viscous, pastel polymeric substance almost imperceptibly from their ceramic bellies.

In addition to the sculptures, Puryear includes audio, video and 2D work utilizing the idea of the museum description card or interactive digital kiosk. Posing as supplemental information relating to the artist and his work, these pieces meander from the informative, deliberately obfuscating the descriptive facts and denying a tidy resolution.

Adams Puryear received a BFA in Sculpture from the Massachusetts College of Art in 2004 and received an MFA from Indiana University in Bloomington in 2012. He exhibits his sculptural and 2D work regularly and is also the founder of FPOAFM Nomadic Art/Craft Collective: a Brooklyn based experimental, project-driven craft collective. Adams Puryear currently lives and works in Brooklyn, NY.