A L E X G A W R O N S K I

Alex Gawronski, Always Open, 2025

First Draft (fundraiser), Woolloomooloo, NSW

(Acylic on canvas – 610 x 760 x 35mm)

Traditionally painting battles between its foremost identity as a representational or purely formal medium un-reliant on external representational cues. Can it be both though? ‘Always Open’ depicts a comic-like image of an open lift. The open space of the lift precisely mimics the proportions of the canvas and can therefore be read simultaneously as pure formal abstraction. The painting is both formalistically flat and spatially representational. Hinging on a resolutely empty space, the work invites the viewer to enter while keeping them at a distance. The resounding emptiness of the image likewise emphasises the ‘objectness’ of painting as something statically removed from ‘real life’. Meanwhile, as representation, the image of the open lift suggests dynamism as potential movement up or down. Art is a thing of promise, always open even when outwardly reticent: one is always in and outside art at once.