Invitation to Roberto Chabet's solo exhibition 'House Paintings' at West Gallery from 29 March to 16 April 2012.

Excerpt from the exhibition statement written by Ringo Bunoan:
'The exhibition features thirty house shaped acrylic paintings in various colors combined from the three primaries, plus black and white. The work recalls two of Chabet’s previous works – House Paintings (1986) and To Be Continued (2010 - 2012).

Spread across all the rooms of West Gallery, Chabet’s latest line of serial paintings builds on the basic schematic of a house through repetition and evolution of colour. Secured on the wall, on top of his ubiquitous plywood shelves, one after another, they are almost like readymade, prefabricated housing developments; their anonymity is heightened by the feature-less uniformity and flatness of the paintings despite their bold and bright colors.  Green, orange, purple, pink, brown, grey - the possible mutations of colours are endless, suggesting simultaneous unity and diversity, and a perpetual flux within the work.

Chabet’s training as an architect may be seen as an explanation for his predilection for creating spaces.
But far from permanent structures, Chabet’s works are mainly architectures of transience. His early nomadic experience as a child growing up in post-war Manila also serves as a context for his installations and other ephemeral works.

Chabet’s 'House Paintings', like most of his assemblages, are both matter and metaphor. They are self-referential attempts to blur the distinction between the actual object and our image of the object. In the process of stripping the house painting down to its literal form, Chabet also creates a kind of contemporary urban geography that is continually being reconstructed and transformed.'