Anecdotal Evidence

Audrey Lukban 

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The artist who goes out to represent the visible world is not simply faced with a neutral medley of forms he seeks to ‘imitate’ — E.H. Gombrich 

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Audrey Lukban shows no fear in being anecdotal. She invites the viewers to elicit a profound mistrust in her depiction of everyday functional objects and their rendering in her painting: to doubt the formal properties of an object is to speculate the real essence it constitutes. 

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In Anecdotal Evidence, Lukban blurs the distinction between the object of her contemplation and its representation. She shaped her canvases to resemble the physical form of crumpled blankets and duvet covers— ascribing a certain sculptural feature that contrasts the flatness of the canvas. This implies an obvious departure from its usual rectangular configuration to experiment with the orientation of her painting pieces. Through the sinuous outlines of her canvas, Lukban demonstrates looseness and expressive freedom— almost unlimited— as she continues to reimagine what the human eye can perceive. 

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Lukban starts off painting by manipulating and devising her own visual references, mostly items found in her bedroom. She then paints them in distinct variations of grey which is achieved by combining shades of violet and brown, without any mix of black pigments. As a result, it induces surreal and dream-like qualities in her works which further sets up a fictional world she is trying to create for the audience to immerse into. Her approach to extracting the essence of objects through painting becomes her own way of escaping the real world that is under constant surveillance. 

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Her trompe l'oeil paintings reinforce a powerful physical presence that they become the very thing they represent— a group of crumpled fabrics. However, whether viewed as crumpled blankets or as clusters of clouds, none of them are in reference to any particular thing. She regards this disassociation between the referent and reference as a faulty strategy in symbolism; the painting as an object stands for itself. 

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Anecdotal Evidence is a serious exercise on creativity. Within the process of transformation, one can sense that Lukban’s preoccupation with forms goes beyond the act of mimicking. It is through painting that she attempts to capture the essence of things. Her paintings served as props in staging an imagined world she seeks to represent. She starts questioning “to what extent do you have to manipulate the material, whether it is through curation or technique for it to evoke a certain idea?” In doing so, Lukban recognises the power of make-believe in order to transform and bring something into existence. 

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                                                                                         James Luigi Tana

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