A step back. A tilt of the head. A bag strap slides off a shoulder, and the weight shifts slightly as it’s adjusted. Hands reach out for each other from behind, posture is straightened, a head leans forward. Hushed conservation, a cell phone is taken out to check a text, snap a picture, and air rushes out of a seat cushion as the weight of a long day at the museum presses into it. The act of looking at an artwork is as much a physical exercise as it is a mental one, and this dance in all its infinite variations between artwork and viewer is performed in thousands of museums and galleries everyday.

This relationship that people have with art–how they behave around it, how they experience it, how they look at it, and, most importantly, how they look when they look at it–has occupied a space in Annie Cabigting’s mind throughout her career.

These paintings always begin with a photo. Some are taken by friends, and Annie may come across them on social media and ask for permission to paint it. Some keep their eyes peeled for interesting figures and paintings, and then send them to her to see what she could make out of it, and some others, she has personally taken herself.

Beyond slight tweaks for composition, she then paints these photos in a photorealistic style almost exactly as how they were. these paintings, however, aren’t solely about the artworks Annie has meticulously reproduced, or the galleries that they inhabit: they are, foremost, about the people looking at these paintings and walking around in these galleries.

Like making a new friend, one would need to spend time with an artwork before it begins to reveal itself. Frozen in time as they step back, tilt their heads, adjust their bags, and lean forward, the people in Annie’s paintings have an eternity to acquaint themselves with what they’re looking at.

Though an eternity is out of reach, there is a moment right here–after all, you are here with them. They are here with you.