Window down

Window-down acrilyc and markers on canvas 80×80 cm – 2025

The work depicted depicts the letter “G,” DutyGorn’s distinctive symbol, and explicitly recalls graffiti made by the artist in the past. Through this choice, DutyGorn performs an operation of memory and reworking, bringing an element of his creative past back to the present day. The letter, however, is not simply repurposed: it is revisited, reinterpreted and embedded within a face, thus merging the symbolic dimension of the graphic sign with the more intimate and identity-driven dimension of the portrait. In this way, the artist creates a bridge between his own personal history in the world of writing and contemporary pictorial research.

The gesture of repainting on canvas what was once traced on walls or train cars also becomes an affirmation of continuity and transformation: the past is not repudiated, but assimilated and enhanced through new languages and media.

“window-down”:
The title of the work, “window-down,” is a direct reference to the jargon of writing and graffiti on trains. This expression refers to graffiti made below the windows of train cars, usually covering the entire length of the bottom of the carriage itself. This term is often used as a prefix (e.g., “window-down wholecar” to refer to a carriage that is entirely painted in the area below the windows), and it differs from other definitions such as “end-to-end” (when the surface is covered from end to end) or “top-to-bottom” (when the entire height of the carriage, including the windows, is covered).

“Window-down,” then, evokes the tradition and language proper to graffiti art on trains, but at the same time it is charged with a new meaning in DutyGorn’s painting practice: it becomes a symbol of a boundary – that between inside and outside, between what is shown and what remains hidden – and of an artistic gesture that continues to evolve while remaining true to its origins.

– DutyGorn