Alexandra AVROS

Lives and works in Vienna, Austria

Artist statement

My paintings are developed through a subtractive process. I begin with a densely built dark surface and remove material through sanding, rubbing, abrasion, and scraping. Light, volume, and depth are not applied to the canvas but released from it; pressure, duration, and the resistance of the surface remain visible in the finished work. My recent paintings move from vessel-like forms toward spirals, cavities, openings, and architectural thresholds. I treat the vessel not as still life or archaeological quotation, but as a structure of holding: an interior shaped by mass, emptiness, touch, and time. As the vessel destabilizes, its inner space expands. Form becomes topography, the spiral becomes an opening, and the opening develops into architecture. Memory enters the work as a material operation rather than a narrative subject. It is carried through accumulation and removal, through fragments that persist after their original context has disappeared, and through surfaces that register contact and erasure. In the architectural works, inherited forms are transferred from fixed settings onto canvas. Their function and location fall away while their spatial pressure remains. Across these shifts, I use painting to test how form can carry duration: from object to cavity, from cavity to threshold, and from threshold to architecture.

Artwork