About the Event
In his third solo exhibition titled Viewfinder, Pope Bacay presents a shift in perspective, a dislocation of the gaze, as he places the viewer on the other side of the landscape. Opaque and enigmatic, these works are a continuation of Bacay’s renderings of architectural features of houses, as much as they stem from the artist’s other body of work, his landscape paintings. Here, the window– the oft-invisible frame that acts as viewfinder– becomes the strange object of one’s attention.
“Everyday, when we go out, we see windows from different houses we pass by. But not all the time do we take a pause and look at each one. We are used to catching glimpses of it, unlike a good view of a landscape which we tend to stare at even on a moving vehicle and even take photos of,” says Bacay.
Drawing inspiration from houses he has lived in or his friends’ abodes, Viewfinder manifests an impulse on the artist’s part to examine the act of looking- that interplay between viewer, frame, and sight– and to playfully switch or muddle the positions as he chooses. The structures stand mutely, with curtains drawn from peeping eyes. Almost as if they hold secrets, or were privy to intimate lives and moments, they dare not give away.
Pope Bacay graduated from the UP College of Fine Arts in 2016. On July 28, 3PM, Saturday, the artist will have a podcast and talk about his show at Tin-aw. For inquiries, please contact Tin-aw Art Gallery at 750-2595, email info@tin-aw.com, or message us on Facebook.