The canvas as a membrane

The pictorial surface has long been conceived as a plane.

With modernism, it became the site of a declaration: painting must acknowledge its two-dimensionality (Greenberg). The surface is what prevents illusion. But this interpretation leaves the canvas in a state of relative inertia. It remains merely a medium.

In my work, the surface ceases to be a mere plane and becomes a membrane.

A membrane is not neutral. It filters, transmits and vibrates. It is a zone of exchange. The incorporation of a sound system literally transforms the canvas into a vibrating surface. The perforated reverse, designed to act as a sound box, engages the medium in an acoustic function.

The painting is no longer merely viewed: it is experienced from within.

This shift also prompts a critical reflection on the ‘white cube’ (Brian O’Doherty). If the exhibition space conditions perception, then the artwork, too, can incorporate its own spatial condition.

The surface becomes a micro-space. A place of tension between visibility and propagation.

The canvas is no longer what shows; it is what transmits.

Bibliographical references

Greenberg, Clement. ‘Modernist Painting’, 1960. O’Doherty, Brian. *Inside the White Cube*. 1976. Merleau-Ponty, Maurice. *The Eye and the Mind*. 1964. Nancy, Jean-Luc. *The Muses*. 1994.