The materials Pacquing chooses are always ready at hand. Sometimes they are tangible  scrap materials, most of which bear no traces of human use, but are kept because of an  intrinsic interest the artist sees in them, such as furniture, tiles, wires, and even paint boxes.  For this exhibition, he continues to work with concrete, which is strongly associated with  sculptural traditions.  

Concrete is a mixture of cement, water, rocks, and sand. Here, the mixture doesn’t perform  like concrete that can be slathered smoothly like a spread. The concrete seems to bubble  or drip. Industrial materials have been used in Pacquing’s work since his beginnings as a  Fine Arts student as a subversive alternative to imported, expensive art supplies. He has  since then honed his proficiency through the decades through process and  experimentation, rather than traditional studio-art methods. Asking him about the show  now is akin to chatting with an artist who is also a highly skilled technician, knowledgeable  of how materials behave to solve the problem of how in composition. The space of the  frame becomes a space of both control and acceptance. He says: Everything that happens  there is calculated.  

For these huge paintings, he does something new by slashing the thick canvas and slotting  objects into the frame as if it were a socket instead of attaching them as he did in his  previous works. The object is then set in place with concrete, which looks like it is still wet  because of its lower viscosity. This is hidden from the viewer in some works and exposed  in others. Moreover, when used in artwork, concrete is typically presented in blocks or tiles,  true to its roots as a material for structure. One wonders if Pacquing’s use of concrete is  shaped by the desire to express something monumental in the smallness of the throwaway  objects. 

One thing is for sure, though, that he continues to develop his unique approach to painting,  holding together formal tensions that are not oppositional and rigid to each other but are  generative, productive relationships. Pacquing often uses the metaphor of play when  talking about his practice. Opposites allow a kind of play and autonomy to be created  freely, where one is not forced to choose one over the other, but instead can contain  suspended contradictions.  

In a related piece, he combines a small pillow drenched in cotton candy pink elastomeric  paint, which makes it waterproof, with a rubberized texture in contrast to the piles of concrete, wood scraps, and an electric wire encircling the composition loosely, and its  excess dangling outside the frame.

The electric wire is an unmaking then remaking of his past works, where he would take a  graphite pencil and draw a demarcating circle inside the canvas. He uses the electric wire  in another painting where it is woven into the canvas to hold a cut-out flap. It is the same  with the black deflated life preserver and deconstructed cardboard, elements of past  paintings here used as a starting point. The shape is a constant in his image-making system,  as are balusters. In a different piece, a baluster is placed under a slash of canvas oozing  with concrete set against a piece of wood painted yellow.  

Rope is also an element of some of his memorable works of tactile abstractions, but for this  show is taken almost against its physical nature by teasing its tensile strength. The rope is  woven to the side of the frame, pulling on a chunk of petrified wood placed in the middle.  This is unexpected as rope is usually wound around fully to fasten for stability.  

The titles of the artworks in the exhibition all include the phrase “What I Have Learned From  My Paintings,” reflecting the works’ theme of reversibility, the freedom available to every  artist. With the choice to return, undo, and discover anew, the act of making is given  meaning. 

Words by Josephine V. Roque

Bernardo Pacquing (b. 1967, Tarlac, Philippines; lives and works in Parañaque City, Philippines)  is an artist broadening the expressive possibilities of abstraction in painting and sculpture. A  graduate of the University of the Philippines and having studied under pioneering conceptual artist  Roberto Chabet, Pacquing was twice awarded the Grand Prize for the Art Association of the  Philippines Open Art Competition (Painting, Non- Representation,1992 / 1999). He received the  Cultural Center of the Philippines Thirteen Artists Award (2000), an award given to exemplary  artists in the field of contemporary visual art. Pacquing, one of the most deeply collected  contemporary artists from the Philippines, has shown extensively in Asia, most recently in China,  Hong Kong, and Singapore. 

Pacquing will be featured in Art Basel Miami 2025 (Nova Sector) together with Nicole Coson for  Silverlens.