Bari Kumar (India and Los Angeles, CA, b. 1966), "As Is", 1997, signed and dated "Bari Kumar 1997" in lower right corner. An original oil painting on canvas by contemporary rising star Bari Kumar, whose compositions typically feature lonely, desolate landscapes and unexpected fragmentary imagery, symbols, and words as we see here with Kumar's intriguing iconographical blend which includes an armless section of a body with an internal pink organ prominently displayed, cross-cultural symbols like the swastika superimposed with stylized floral motifs featured in the lower left corner, and the boldly painted words "as is" - a phrase usually used to refer to damaged retail goods, but here perhaps referring to the dismembered nature of the figure who may represent Christ, a favorite subject of Mr. Kumar. Kumar's work is inspired as much by Los Angeles, where he has lived for approximately thirty years, as his childhood memories from rural southern India. According to Holland Cutter, an art critic for the New York Times, Kumar "destabilizes what was once called identity politics by making his own position all but unlocatable. The web of apparently free-floating cultural fragments that results can be hard to read and in Mr. Kumar's work sometimes feels inorganically pieced together. But he's dealing with difficult material and doing so in intriguing ways that would seem to allow plenty of room for growth." (http://www.nytimes.com/2004/03/19/arts/art-in-review-bari-kumar.html?_r=) A wonderful avant-garde work by Bari Kumar who masterfully conflates various cross-cultural ideas, symbols, and words in a manner that alludes to Jungian notions of collective consciousness and magically manages to be simultaneously "seductive and repulsive" as Kumar has stated he desires. Bari Kumar received his BFA in Graphic Design from Otis/Parsons School of Design, Los Angeles, in 1988. His work has been exhibited internationally in museums and galleries, including the recent exhibition, “Remembering Future,” at Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the 2008 Sydney Biennale, and the San Jose Museum of Art. Size: painting measures 24" W x 18.25" H (61 cm x 46.4 cm); 27.75" W x 21.75" H (70.5 cm x 55.2 cm) framed

Recent Bari Kumar auction sales include "Descent" (2007)which hammered at $38,000 at Christie's, New York, 20 Mar. 2008; "Silence II" (2007) which hammered at $41,024 at Christie's Hong Kong, China, 25 May 2008; and an untitled painting that hammered $30,000 at Christie's, New York, 20 Mar. 2008.

Provenance: Ex-Los Angles, California collection

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