Known for painting objects into austere images, Buboy Cañafranca’s latest solo exhibition once again turns our attention to a set of things in order to witness how they appear when placed at the center. In putting special emphasis on an object by casting them as remotely as possible–devoid of context and activity–from their common surroundings and milieu, looking then becomes almost an act of consecration, allowing us to meditate on the thing’s unique qualities. He has done this in the past with slabs of meat, piles of beans, and other edibles. For this show, he has chosen a set of objects that speaks its own history, rich with its own narrative attached to its specific purpose.

In Route of Administration, he puts a seldomly depicted object in the forefront. Although there are instances where it has earned its own special place in art history like in Magritte’s Ceci n’est pas une pipe (or The Treachery of Images as its proper title), this contraption is not something one could have readily surmised as visually striking. But therein lies the paradox. For what could be more visual (and striking) than the indication of altered perceptions? In Cañafranca’s depiction of pipes—which are, in their appearance, rife with histories and are storied in their own way—he consequently teases out questions about perception: how much meaning can we attach into an object? How many memories can an object hold and how could they possibly invade our own?

In certain ways, these objects appear as articles that entail a kind of intimacy: personal, reflexive, shamanistic, meditative, and even medicative. When it is suddenly placed at the center of our attention, and in the middle of the canvas without extraneous embellishments, it then enters the realm of process. It falls outside the categories of mere depiction–as in still life; or of mere portrayal, as in photographs. In the manner that Cañafranca paints, similar to his previous attempts, we begin to realize that the notion that surrounds the object is vital. That the idea of painting a variety of used pipes is a reflection on painting itself—or even more accurately: on the subject of painting and the act of choosing its subject.

This item, so charged with several realities, distortions, realizations, and even controversies, serve as a conduit to the discourse on subject matter. Like Derrida’s concept of the pharmakon, it could mean either remedy, or poison. When we give special attention to an object, we immediately surround it with meaning. Considered as a nod to Magritte’s famous pipe, these paraphernalia in the same way fetch suspicions about perception. Magritte’s line ‘this is not a pipe’ here translates to ‘this is not the actual pipe,’ before we hurry into incredible and far-fetching conclusions.

This is Buboy Cañafranca’s way of turning perception into image: like a multitude of histories— compact, conveyed, or even sometimes, administered.

/CLJ