The act and materiality of wrapping has been traditionally associated with concealment.
It becomes a formal gesture straddling the acts of giving and receiving objects, or a signifier of secrecy meant to shield the final image from the eye of the beholder. Visual artist Annie Cabigting engages this concept head on in Under Wraps, a solo exhibition at Silverlens Galleries.
The exhibition is comprised entirely of wrapped paintings, with square canvases being carefully covered up with paper and set apart on pedestals. Like sculptures in the round, the wrapped paintings stand apart as objects to be physically experienced and contemplated at face value. Each work is deliberately left untitled, merely numbered. This catalogued sequence gives no clues as to what lies beneath, leaving one possibly suspended in disbelief, confronted with more questions than answers.
Literally and figuratively under wraps, this form of presentation is an deliberate gesture on the part of the artist: to display and put forth objects in that state of being veiled and covered up. Being wrapped is not longer the transitory phase that it was: it is no longer a fragment of the flurry of preparations right before the exhibition, relegated to the unseen. Instead, it enters a state of permanent suspension, where the great unveiling and the grand moment of revelation never comes.
In Cabigting's series, the act of concealment highlights and isolates the act and object of painting. The deliberate absence of images and other elements or even symbols within the installation space forces the viewer to finally confront the austerity of Cabigting's objects, lying in state: what do these things have to say, when process itself is put on display?
Wrapping becomes a reflexive act of revealing. The artist writes: concealment highlights and thus reveals the work of painting. The very act of looking poses a visual and experiential challenge to both artist and viewer, who must resist the repeated urge to peek, open and unwrap the object beneath. The work that lies covered may never be viewed, appreciated or reviled, the artist herself acknowledges, but it is precisely this very act of concealing the painting that is the subject of Cabigting's inquiry. It is the process, and not the final outcome, of painting that must be re-examined.
Often merging installation, photography and painting in her work, Cabigting's art-making has continually taken on the challenge of revisiting our notions of representation. In recent years, Cabigting has focused on creating paintings within paintings: consciously self-referential images that re-examine the ways how people are literally standing in front and seeing works of art. Under Wraps pursues her engagement with conceptualism, consistently reminding the viewer to rethink the ways we have traditionally accustomed ourselves to view art.
Source: Clickthecity.com