• Membra, 2012 - Diego Pujal
  • Poral, 2012 - Diego Pujal

3.13 | Diego Pujal | Res

March 18th 2013

Fabricated titles describe equally mysterious forms, foreign yet somehow also strangely familiar. “Res” carries multiple meanings; “thing” in Latin, the basis of the Argentinian artist’s Spanish language, “beef” in contemporary Spanish, while in Catalan, the language of his home in Barcelona, it carries no meaning at all. The titles of his works, osamenta, otolito, membra, poral, similarly have no significance, despite their teetering on the brink of authenticity. Ambiguous shapes with artfully concealed meanings, often materializing in stark black, appear to float in brilliantly colored negative space, heightening their impact. These organic forms, with their unmistakable sense of movement and fragility, call to mind the paintings of Jean Arp and Joan Miro, the sculptures of Alexander Calder and Henry Moore, even Isamu Noguchi’s biomorphic designs. The elusive forms take on numerous interpretations in their recognizable yet undefined state. They are neither abstractions nor representations of reality, rather they are somewhere in between.