by BARBARA PUTO
THE CONSTRUCTION OF FREEDOM
Five oil paintings. Five poems. Five stages of one evolving construction.
If you removed everything in you that came from others,
how much of you would be left?
WHAT SHAPES US CAN ALSO CONFINE US
We are shaped by people, relationships, culture, history, language and experience. They become part of who we are. But some of these influences can also become limitations.
If what confines us is also part of what has made us who we are,
what happens when we begin to remove it?
So many people are inside me
1. Personality
I absorb the rough light
2. Conditioning
Perhaps the cage has no lock
3. Trapped
Do I have to?
4. Releasing
I don't have to
5. Liberated?
ABOUT THE PROCESS DOCUMENTATION
The photographs throughout this project come from my personal working archive, captured spontaneously during the creation of the paintings. Rather than transforming them into polished exhibition photography, I chose to preserve their raw, unpolished character.
Shifting natural light, studio shadows, and the changing atmosphere remain deliberately visible. This documentation retains the immediacy of the creative process, mirroring the paintings themselves—works evolving through uncertainty, change, and successive layers.
THE CONSTRUCTION OF FREEDOM — INDEX
Five paintings. Five poems. Five stages of one evolving construction
Chapter I: Personality
Poem: “Who Am I?” (1997)
Artwork: Oil on canvas,
120 × 80 cm
Chapter II: Conditioning
Poem: “In Search” (2018)
Artwork: Oil on canvas,
120 × 80 cm
Chapter III: Trapped
Poem: “The Cage” (2024)
Artwork: Oil on canvas,
70 × 50 cm
Chapter IV: Releasing
Poem: “Do I Have To?” (2026)
Artwork: Oil on canvas,
100 × 60 cm
Chapter V: Liberated?
Poem: “I Don’t Have To” (2026)
Artwork: Oil on canvas,
150 × 50 cm
Project Summary
The Construction of Freedom
“The Construction of Freedom” began with a question of authorship: how much of the person I have become can I truly call my own?
Throughout our lives, other people and the world around us contribute to shaping our inner structure. Relationships, upbringing, culture, experience, love, loss and memory leave traces that gradually become harder to distinguish from what we consider our own. I became interested not only in how identity is constructed, but also in the moment when what helped to shape us begins to confine us.
I developed the project as a sequence of five oil paintings. The format of each painting is part of the artistic statement — it changes with the situation of the figure and the successive stages of the project. The subject of the series is the human being. In Polish, both “personality” and “identity” are grammatically feminine, and so they became embodied in the paintings as a female figure. I build her through layers of oil paint, moving from transparent passages to more tactile surfaces. The paintings evolve through changes, overpainting and rejected solutions. The process therefore serves not merely to execute a previously planned composition — it becomes part of the meaning of the work itself.
Each painting is accompanied by one of my poems. They were written at different moments in my life and were not created to explain the paintings. Image and language remain distinct yet parallel ways of engaging with questions that have accompanied me for years.
The final painting does not present liberation as simply freeing oneself from external influences. Its title retains a question mark. If we are partly constructed by what comes to us from outside, what does it mean to be truly free in determining who we are? Can we recognise the prejudices, stereotypes, patterns of thought and fears within ourselves — and consciously decide which parts of our construction we want to continue carrying with us?
ARTIST BIO
Barbara Puto is a Polish contemporary painter based in Warsaw, working in oil, acrylic and watercolor. Her practice focuses on the mechanisms that shape living systems and human identity, translating processes observed in nature, individual experience and relationships into painterly structures.
Her work begins with direct experience of the world — nature, people, places, light and atmosphere. What she feels is as important to her as what she sees. New surroundings often awaken in her an almost imperative need to paint. This intuitive and emotional impulse coexists with an analytical tendency to search for structures, relationships and systems beneath the surface of visible reality.
Her background combines art, engineering and management. She holds an MSc in Electrical Engineering from Cracow University of Technology and an MBA from the University of Gdańsk, completed in collaboration with GFKM and RSM Erasmus University. Alongside her artistic practice, she has pursued a long professional career in the energy sector.
She is also the author of Business Is Art, a series of articles exploring the relationship between art, creativity and management. Her works have been presented in curated solo and group exhibitions in galleries, cultural institutions and public spaces.
In 2025, Puto received a Certificate of Artistic Achievement from the Luxembourg Art Prize. Her work has also received international distinctions and finalist selections, including recognition from Light Space & Time and Blue Koi Gallery, and has been published in the UK-based Visual Art Journal. Her paintings are held in private collections in Europe and the United States.
Official Artist Website
barbaraputo.art
barbaraputo.pl — full portfolio, artistic series, exhibitions, biography and current projects
Selected External Platforms
Saatchi Art — selected artworks presented on the platform
Barbara Puto, MBA — LinkedIn — professional background, Business Is Art articles and reflections on the relationship between art, creativity and management
Social Media