Celebrated contemporary artist Annie Cabigting is widely known for her conceptually rigorous and groundbreaking practices and projects. Cabigting graduated with a degree in painting from the University of the Philippines – Diliman and has exhibited in various solo and group shows in the country and abroad. Her work was included in the Prague Biennale in Czechoslovakia. Cabigting was also a finalist of the 2005 Ateneo Art Awards. Though she is mostly known for paintings, specifically her works featuring individuals gazing upon great works of art, she has also delved into and experimented with other forms of art and media. This comes as no surprise given that Cabigiting’s practice emphasizes a conceptual dimension, a predisposition that can be attributed to her mentor and the Father of Philippine Conceptual Art Roberto Chabet. In Habitus and Excess 2, Cabigting takes on a much more sculptural approach to her art, but manages to relate it back to her main practice of painting. The work features a palette knife driven into a ball of excess and discarded paint. The relatively frank nature of the pieces confronts the often dramatized and idealized act of painting and creating art. The work peels back these layers and offers the viewer a glimpse of the material realities that are necessary to art itself.