The Wholeness In-between brings together two bodies of work from disparate artist residencies, five years apart, but in a dialogue that upholds the narrative of the artist drawing herself into existence.
In 2021, Gosia Wlodarczak entered a period of self-imposed isolation inside a small retail tenancy in Melbourne’s Royal Arcade. For twenty-one days, her only interaction with the outside world was mediated by the arcade itself, as viewed through the shopfront window. The duration of the performance expanded and contracted around mandated closures in a world where time was heavy.
During this residency, part of the City of Melbourne’s Flash Forward program, Wlodarczak methodically and intensively etched thousands of marks across walls, ceiling and glass facade, accumulating dense strata of white lines that took shape as an embodied installation, inseparable from the imposed conditions of confinement, observation, and duration.
In the final days of 2025 Wlodarczak began her newest endeavour to weave herself into the fabric of time through observational drawing. She took up occupancy inside the vacant Gallerysmith space during its annual summer break. In seclusion, she spent twenty-two days living, sleeping, and performatively drawing within the gallery across cycles of daylight, dusk, and night. The outcome of this residency is a body of small works on linen, which record intimate fragmented details of objects within a dormant space.
Wlodarczak describes this suite of new artworks as a constellation, secluded pieces that hold greater meaning through their networked connection - an archipelago through time. Installed on the wall as floating celestial bodies, one’s eye is invited to find rhythms within and draw connections between the galaxy of stars.
These two bodies of work underscore the essence of Wlodarczak’s practice, drawing as a declaration of ‘being’, yet they are merely timestamps on a continuum. Every other intangible observation, experience,
performance, thought and idea in the intervening period reverberates silently through the gallery. The life and times of Gosia Wlodarczak fills the wholeness in-between.
