Putnam builds animal forms with blankets, shirts, fake fur, rags, thread, plastic garbage bags, leather scraps and glue. These sculptures evoke playful, whimsical characters found in children’s books, but his characters are something different: they are physically and psychologically vulnerable and seem like monstrously overgrown stuffed toys, wounded stray dogs or imaginary friends—misfits whose …
Putnam builds animal forms with blankets, shirts, fake fur, rags, thread, plastic garbage bags, leather scraps and glue. These sculptures evoke playful, whimsical characters found in children’s books, but his characters are something different: they are physically and psychologically vulnerable and seem like monstrously overgrown stuffed toys, wounded stray dogs or imaginary friends—misfits whose demeanors both invite and repel. Like mutant craft projects gone ominously awry, their surfaces suggest that the skins of these beings have been torn away through some violent process, exposing their …
