Think of It as a Whole

Elliott Templeton Fine Arts is delighted to present James Cabaniuk's exhibition, Think of It as a Whole. This is the artist's first exhibition in New York. Cabaniuk's paintings employ abstraction to embed ideas and images "hidden in plain sight" as visual double entendre, specifically as gestures to the experiences of queer people. Within the artist's compositions of thickly layered and expressively applied oil paint, Cabaniuk inserts interpretive figurative elements—although originating as the artist's in-group communication to other queer people, Cabaniuk's images can be read freely by the viewer. Their use of opacity is intended to mimic cultural constructions such as Polari, through which homosexuals and social deviants adopted a language that could be heard by all but only understood by them. In this body of work, Cabaniuk considers the boundaries of one's autonomy as they relate to psychological states of spiraling and dissociation. Expressed through their vivid brushwork, Cabaniuk grapples with the mechanics of self-control in moments of vulnerability. In this way, for Cabaniuk, the exhibition title refers to a tender utterance that may be offered as a form of care amid these episodes, but also, playfully, as a more explicit sexual double entendre. Cabaniuk lives and works between Manchester and London. They recently earned an MFA in Fine Arts from Goldsmiths in 2023. This exhibition is presented courtesy of Workplace (London, UK).