As a natural observer, Alex Gardner captures the nuances of relationships through luminous paintings. Through making connections, he creates dual narratives of optimism and paranoid delusion. The artist's vivid color fields are inhabited by faceless characters, unobscured by superficial features or societal pressures. Human in nature, Gardner’s figures exhibit intimately familiar behaviors: frozen in amusement, an intimate embrace, or caught in a moment of melancholy. Free of the obligations imposed by identity markers they become universal, activated by the lived experience of each onlooker. However, while we project ourselves onto them, they are not ours. The ambiguous backdrop of his canvases mirror the malleability of Gardner's pitch-black figures. Rather than imparting definitions, Gardner offers solace in an indefinite ecosystem polluted with information.
