Alicja Gaskon: New Beginnings

Alicja Gaskon’s work seems formalist-minimalist at first sight, contradicting and opposing everything that recollects the act of creation. Yet, her artistic practice is as much about the process, as it is about the result. Most often she wants to invoke the idea of painting itself, simultaneously delicate and monumental, heavy and light, formalist in a way, but minimalist in content and appearance.

Gaskon’s work latest work, which is on view in “new beginnings”, her first solo-show in Basel, takes place between different media and explores spaces of transition and indecision. It is suspended between abstraction and representation, form and formlessness, ideas and their material manifestations. Creation, destruction, invention and subversion take place simultaneously.

Without being overtly programmatic, the exhibition builds upon references to the daily struggle of humanity in a globalized environment with its fast-paced days, eventful lives, multitude of changes, chances and choices. It takes on the subject of day-to-day new beginnings, which can be positive or negative. The viewer is confronted with this duality and is invited to enter into a dialogue, a chance to contemplate his own situation and reflect more closely upon the dynamic of change that each new beginning brings about.

The exhibition will include almost exclusively new work – a ready-made installation and several “paintings” made of unexpected materials.

Alicja Gaskon (b. 1985, Warsaw) received her Masters of Fine Arts from the Department of Painting at the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw. She has been exhibited widely in solo and group shows in Europe and the United States. Gaskon has won multiple awards and scholarships. She currently lives and works in Basel and Warsaw.