Miriam Cabessa: in her wake
September 22 – November 6, 2011, Julie M. Gallery, Toronto
The drawings and paintings of Miriam Cabessa are focused explorations of direct contact between the artist and surface. Neither the product of a pencil or a brush, this work flies in the face of tradition. At first glance, it is nearly impossible to decypher the process behind these creations. Certainly, there is no familiar trace of brushstrokes or hatching——and this is perplexing.
The precision inherent in Cabessa’s work ignites the imagination. Instead of viewing the work as an autonomous object, the mind automatically tries to unravel the process by which it was created. And until 2009, when Cabessa revealed her signature technique in a painting performance at Pulse New York art fair, her process remained largely a mystery [Figure 1].
Using oil on linen or masonite, or powdered graphite and turpentine on paper, Cabessa creates a surface wash that is sensitive to her touch in the same way that photographic paper is sensitive to light. The image is always created by exposing negative spaces: pulling or scraping pigment aside to heighten the contrast of her compositions. The images she crafts are traces of her movements; essentially they are drawings in light. Critic John Yau writes that, “Cabessa’s composition is a record of a single, sustained and segmented gesture, a discrete performance.”[i]
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| FIGURE 1: Miriam Cabessa creating an untitled work at Pulse NY, 2009 |
The gesture in which Cabessa comes into contact with her pigmented canvas can only be described by the musical term “rubato”. Originating from the phrase tempo rubato, or “stolen time”, rubato[ii] Guided by her breathing and heartbeat, Cabessa moderates the pressure, duration, and directionality of her point of contact with the surface. Cabessa’s rubato process allows the final work to transcend its existence as an object. Once familiarized with this choreographic process of creation, it becomes impossible to view the work without seeing echoes of the artist’s movements. The imagination of the viewer encapsulates Image, Process and Artist into a single intimate phenomenon: a unique moment, captured and recorded——a piece of “stolen time”. describes the subtle and arbitrary manipulation of tempo to augment the expressiveness of a performance. In a recent interview Cabessa intimated, “The more in control you try to be, the less interesting the results are. You have to constantly let go of the illusion of control. But on the other hand, you have to practice, train yourself in the act of simultaneous motion and release.”
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FIGURE 2: Miriam Cabessa, Drawings, c. 2007-2010
graphite & turpentine on paper, 23 x 29
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Of all her work, Cabessa’s drawings are the most analogous to the experience of creation. Cabessa likens her approach to drawing to a dancer practicing. Her movements must be sure and swift as the turpentine dries quickly on the paper, leaving behind abstract striations of pigment [Figure 2]. “Conceptually, the drawings are little secrets,” says Cabessa, explaining that each is like a written note, an archive of movement and sensation that may one day lead to a painting. Clearly, these drawings are deeply personal——perhaps this is why they have only been exhibited once before, at group exhibition in Jerusalem.
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| FIGURE 3: Miriam Cabessa, Sungunilee, 2010 oil on linen, 54 x 54" |
Unlike her drawings, Miriam Cabessa’s paintings are occasionally figurative, yet they too invariably convey a sensuous experience [Figure 3]. This sensuous quality has given rise to the label “feminine action painting”. However, this label is only viable when comparing her work to the vigorous, testosterone-fueled action paintings of Jackson Pollock. In fact Cabessa has much more in common with the later works of France’s preeminent contemporary painter, Pierre Soulages [Figure 4]. Both artists reject the brush to engage with a sensitized monochromatic surface, though Soulages prefers to sculpt luminous patterns in thick black oil paint. Ananda Chakrabarty’s description of one of Soulages’ Ultrablack paintings as a “hyper sensitive” and “ultra-sensuous,” “archive of the process of its making”[iii] could just as easily refer to a drawing by Cabessa.
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| FIGURE 4: Pierre Soulages with his paintings, installation view, Centre Pompidou, 2009. Photo credit: Photo © Dana and Stephane Maitec |
But looking closely at one of her drawings hanging on a white gallery wall reveals a technological coolness that complicates the sensuous quality of the work. Indeed, many pieces betray an aesthetic so calculated and precise that it should have been produced by machine. The formal qualities of the drawings and some paintings bring to mind hospital printouts of electrocardiograms, scientific sonographs, perhaps even glitchy thermo-printed faxes. When asked about the diagrammatic technological quality of her work, Cabessa responded that throughout much of art history, painters attempted to produce images that were true to life; however, since photography is now ubiquitous, perhaps it is now more interesting to emulate a machine aesthetic [Figure 6].
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| FIGURE 5: Chris Drury, Double Echo, 2007 echocardiogram superimposed over an echogram inkjet print from Flight W38, 53 x 45" |
Interestingly, only a single piece of art found to date resembles Cabessa’s unique look, and it was made using imaging technology. Created in 2007, Double Echo is a composite image by the British land artist Chris Drury that meshes the echocardiogram of a research pilot flying over the Antarctic with an echogram of the icecap [Figure 5]. Cabessa’s aesthetic can be similarly described as a double echo. Explicit echoes of technology coexist in Cabessa’s rippling monochromes, alongside visual allusions to aerial photographs of water, or the striated stone of Utah’s Grand Canyon. The erosion of pigment doubles as visual biomimicry of the complex emergent patterns left by the physics of time, water and stone.
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| FIGURE 6: Miriam Cabessa, Untitled No. 3, 2008 oil on linen, 52 x 52" |
The paintings and drawings included in the solo exhibit in her wake are ultimately unique. They are resonant echoes of both their creation and their creator. The marks that Cabessa leaves in her wake contain traces of writing, of dance, of performance art. Finding balance between a technological aesthetic and organic process, the patterned traces of Miriam Cabessa’s artistic choreography offer a taste of the sublime.
Leia Gore, 2011
Writer – contemporary art, Toronto
*Note: This essay has been published through the Julie M. Gallery, Toronto in September, 2011. To purchase a catalogue of works from the show including the essay, please click here.
[i] Yau, John. “Three Strong Painters.” Maryland Institute of Art, Baltimore: ArtScape, 2002.
[ii] Armon Azoulay, Ellie. “Present at the Creation.” Haaretz. Aug 27, 2011. <http://www.haaretz.com/weekend/magazine/present-at-the-creation-1.380882 >
[iii] Chakrabarty, Ananda. “Soulage’s Paintings & Kuspit’s Criticism.” Dialectical Conversations: Donald Kuspit’s Art Criticism, p. 173, Liverpool: Liverpool U., 2011.
