Unraveling (third - unstretched cloth)

Jan Balquin ruminates on the nature of painting and her own artistic practice in this work, Unraveling (third – unstretched cloth), (2026). This was part of a series of paintings depicting the stages involved in the preparation of a painting ground, shown in reverse, from the primed blank canvas to the unprimed version, to the unstretched cloth draped on the frame, to the primed wooden backing, to the raw backing, and finally to the wooden armature of the frame.

In this work, the artist masterfully captures the folds and creases of the cloth loosely draped on the frame. The blank unstretched canvas creates a stark contrast with the grey cement walls behind it. By making the material components of painting her subject matter, Balquin makes viewers aware of their nature as physical objects while highlighting the difference between representation and reality.