Destroyed Painting...After Bacon

Annie Cabigting's Destroyed Painting...After Bacon, (2007) is a reflection on the thin line between creation and destruction, as seen through the lens of Western art history. Focusing on the discarded canvases that did not meet the exacting standards of the British artist Francis Bacon, Cabigting delves into a lesser-known aspect of the artist’s oeuvre. After his death in 1992, Bacon's London studio was discovered to contain almost one hundred destroyed canvases. In this painting, one of a series that the artist made, negative space obscures the subject of a portrait, conveying both the implied violence and the surreal beauty of Bacon's failed picture.