Juergen Puetz

Palmyrart- Auroville

ABOUT SELLER

On himself

Juergen Puetz, born in Cologne, Germany, on 29th April 1950.

He was interested in Art and Painting from an early age, spending a lot of time walking the museums and Art scenes in his native City and painted, mostly exploring colors and shapes on different mediums, in his late teens.

Early days in Auroville

After coming to India – Auroville – in 1973, painting took a backseat and he concentrated to work on land generation efforts in an area deemed unfit for human habitation in and around Auroville.

It included Farming as well as Afforestation and Soil and Waterconservation projects but also the regeneration of large water bodies – used for irrigation – in the context of local Agriculture.

Paintings

Juergen P. started painting again around 2011, at first on subjects expressed digitally and one year later he started to paint abstract. The physical foundation of all his oil and acrylic works are various soils from the local surroundings including the Arunachala Mountain in
Thiruvannamalai, which are genuinely interwoven into the entire painting, making it quite unique.

He suggests each of his paintings to be looked at like you merge with a Mandala.

Enjoying each detail and become one with the work.

Influence

His main influences in life, as we perceive it, are the Teachings of Sri Aurobindo and The Mother, Sri Bhagavan Ramana Maharshi and Buddhist Teachings.

Painting

The works of Gerhard Richter, Jackson Pollock and Andy Warhol and ancient Cave paintings from all Continents, are regarded as his favorites’, even though all of them are only grains in the long evolution of Art, however it is perceived or called, on this planet.

On Abstract Paintings

Abstract painting unites you with what already exist in your ‘imaginative’ consciousness and let’s you expand on it. In other words, by definition, you are not being shown something with which you are not familiar but with something which may act as a catalyst into the unknown, so to say, with which paradoxically, you could experience to be quite familiar. Gerhard Richter once said “I don’t know about reality – all I know are the impressions’ that I have of it”. This impressive statement could come right out of Vedanta, the definite Indian Philosophy on reality, or the absence of it. If one looks at paintings by Picasso, Kandinsky, Richter, Soulage, Newman, Delaunay, and Klee, to name a few – one sees that if, in fact, there had been rules – they were there to be broken. But maybe not completely – because there are, like with so many other things, degrees of abstractions. In fact, when an abstraction is re-figured digitally, which is something I do very often in my video’s, the re-figuration becomes entirely realistic -in a geometric sense -and thereby presents itself as a new and fascinating experience. In my own ‘abstract explorations’ I work with all kinds of materials to give expression to a singular flash of inspiration to be materialised on wood or canvas. I work with commercial oil paint, soil from different locations such as Auroville or the Arunachala, different kind of pigments, oxides, acrylic- and oil paints as well as glass paints, linseed oil and arabic gum. Perhaps, all life is abstract after all, living in Auroville for quite some decades now, this is certainly my experience.
To a degree.

Juergen Puetz, Auroville, August 2015.

Exhibitions

Earth and Paint– 2nd to 20th April 2015 at Alliance Francaise, Pondicherry
Abstract – 14th to 24th September 2014 at Aurodhan, Pondicherry
"Ragas for Coltrane and Cage" – 26th July to 17th August 2014, Kala Kendra, Auroville.
"Abstract Unity" – 1st to 30th November 2013, Unity Pavilion, Auroville.
"Geometry of the Soul" – 30 March to 16th April 2013 at Citadine, Auroville.
"Geometry of the Heart" - 15th December 2012 to 26th January 2013 at Savitri Bhavan, Auroville.
"Parables of Dawn" – 6th to 28th April 2012 at Savitri Bhavan, Auroville.
Between Magic & Expression – 6th to 22nd August 2011 at Kala Kendra, Auroville.

Group Show

"What is Auroville", Exhibition at Lalit Kala Akademi, Chennai, March 2015.
Article on The Hindu: http://www.thehindu.com/features/metroplus/in-a-land-beyond-opposites/article7011863.ece

Member

Auroville International Community, Auroville, India,
Near Pondicherry.