Bari Kumar at Bose Pacia

Art in America, Nov, 2004 by Jonathan Goodman

Born in Andhra Pradesh in 1966, Los Angeles-based painter Bari Kumar studied at the Rishi Valley School, founded by the philosopher J. Krishnamurti, then moved to L.A. in his late teens to pursue graphic design at Otis/Parsons School of Design. Consequently, like so many Asian artists in the United States, he belongs to two cultures, a double affiliation that makes its way into the deepest recesses of his art. Kumar's old-masterish, figurative paintings recall the European Renaissance, yet they also incorporate Hindu religious allusions. Additionally, Kumar regularly includes texts in English, Spanish and Indian languages to introduce a politicized content. His resistance to any single system of representation results in a freewheeling intricacy of form and motifs.

Kumar's grim vision has the dark thrill of hip despair. In Ecce Homo (2002), the words of the title are written in block letters across the bottom of the canvas. Above, two intertwining snakes are placed over a nude hermaphrodite whose breasts and genitals are somewhat obscured by painted pixels. The figure's head and lower legs are cropped out of the picture, and the arms are stumps. The dark, twisting snakes lend the painting an aura of menace, while the words (literally, "behold the man") emphasize the body's gender predicament. In another painting, Sooner or Later (2003), the letters in "sooner" are arranged in a pyramidal shape topped by an eye. Again, a pair of curving, intertwined snakes appears at the center of the composition. The note of finality conveyed by the phrase "sooner or later" is central to the viewer's experience of the painting, which, like Ecce Homo, feels vaguely threatening.

Live and Let Live (2003), an ambitious 30-foot-long painting, incorporates wildly diverse images in a multipaneled composition. In the dead center is an eye with a nail penetrating it, surrounded by a wreath of flowers. On the left is a headless blue torso, a motif Kumar often uses. While the color recalls representations of Hindu deities, the figure is here rendered in a loincloth and with his hands bound behind him, like Christ in certain Renaissance paintings. Other symbols in the various panels include twinned snakes; a pistol with the words "God bless" written in reverse beneath it; and a pair of brown-skinned hands cupping the Spanish phrase "asi es" ("thus it is") above the provocative motto, "Brown is the new black." Although there may be something too casual in Kumar's nod here to a racial content, the billboardlike painting provides a powerful, and very contemporary, juxtaposition of complex allusions.