Key projects define the main axis of Barbara Puto's artistic practice. They focus on relationships and processes — between the individual and the community, humanity and nature, the internal and what is shaped by the presence of others and the surrounding world.
A significant area of these explorations is interdependence. The individual does not function here as a separate and autonomous entity, but as part of a larger, dynamic structure of relationships. Models of organization present in nature gain particular importance: networks devoid of a central hub, structures that develop without a superior hierarchy, and organisms whose ability to cooperate undermines the simple division between the individual and the collective.
This perspective opens Puto's work to interpretations close to posthumanist thinking, where humans cease to be the sole point of reference, and nature is not a passive backdrop for their presence. It becomes an active system of relationships, processes, and forms of organization, allowing questions to be raised about human community, identity, and ways of coexistence.
At the same time, the artist is interested in processes occurring within humans — emotions, memory, and the traces left by relationships and experiences. The boundary between what is individual and what comes from the outside remains fluid: personality emerges in a continuous process of exchange, influence, and transformation.
Key projects create a shared space for these explorations. They are united by an attempt to give visible form to the invisible processes and relationships that organize life — from biological structures and networks of interdependence to emotional and social mechanisms shaping humanity.
Key Projects:
Key Projects
Barbary Puto
Key projects are cycles that most thoroughly define the direction and character of Barbara Puto's artistic practice. They constitute the essence of her work and the foundation for her ongoing formal and meaningful explorations.
Microcosm
An interdisciplinary painting cycle inspired by the biological structures of simple organisms, particularly the network intelligence of slime molds (Myxomycetes). Organic microscopic forms become on the canvas a pretext for reflections on collective communication, self-organization of matter, and interdependencies present in every system of life. Aligning with the paradigm of posthumanist thinking, "Microcosm" blurs the boundary between the individual and the community. These works provoke the question of whether human social mechanisms are merely a repetition of the biological structures that have organized the biosphere for billions of years.
Beings
A cycle dedicated to the inner states of humanity and the affects that elude clear definitions and verbalization. Fear, memory, fragility, or inner emancipation are not illustrated here in a literal way. The human figure ceases to be a classical portrait of a specific person, becoming a universal carrier of psychological tensions and a map of internal experience. Utilizing the specificity and ethereality of the watercolor medium on archival paper, "Beings" attempts to give visible form to affective processes that unfold beneath the surface of everyday perception.
Humanity
A cycle realizing the idea of a monumental existential synthesis, in which the visual boundaries between human anatomy and dendrological structure blur. Tree forms adopt characteristics of human gestures, becoming carriers of stories about relationships, generational memory, strength, and organic fragility. Through expressive painting gestures, the artist relinquishes anthropocentric barriers, depicting humanity not as the dominator of nature, but as an entity rooted, growing into the earth, and subject to the same eternal cycles of transience. It is a raw yet tender narrative about the need for closeness and survival embedded in the fabric of the world.