This is Not A Gun

In This is Not a Gun, 2017, Nona Garcia contemplates the nature of representation and the cognitive links between what we see and what we can know.  Consisting of a painting of a gun wrapped in cardboard and string and its corresponding x-ray, the work questions how much of our knowledge of the real world is shaped by what is visible and by what is unseen. 

In both panels, the physical properties of the object are obscured, but its length and form allude to its known reality. The work explores not only the “objecthood” of what is represented but also reflects on the underlying nature of representation itself.  The work is a continuation of the artist's ongoing interest in ontological concerns, previously explored in other works such as See-Saw, 2000, which won the Grand Prize at the Philip Morris Group of Companies ASEAN Art Awards 2000. In pondering the conceptual limitations of painting and photographs to reflect reality, Nona’s work conveys its essence as both image and object; this is a gun, and yet this is not a gun.