MEL SKLUZACEK, Early Work: 1993 - 2003
Opening Reception: November 19th, 1-5pm
On View Nov 19 - Dec 17th, 2023

Marvin Gardens is pleased to present Early Work: 1993-2003, a solo exhibition of mixed-media paintings by New York based sculpture and multi-media artist Mel Skluzacek. Made over the course of a decade, these unique paintings reveal the artist’s early drive toward materiality in three-dimensional techniques and establish a record of themes still being grappled with by the artist’s contemporary works. There is a gravity to these works that is challenging to unpack. Embodied knowledge of plein air history, mixed with the light of Edward Hopper, glaring on buildings, flattening out planes, helps us begin to place the paintings. Yet there is an intensely personal sensation through and through, seemingly imbued in the infrastructure of the images, recording a gentle and deliberate process of finding one’s way in plein air painting, while finding one’s way in a landscape about which one’s views are shifting as a young artist at the time, in Minneapolis. Place, and the individual’s relationship to it, is at the forefront. What Skluzacek previously identified in cleared, flat, mid-western land as peaceful long horizons, which carried deep familiar sensations of “home,” now began to reveal sites marked by a history of ecocide. However, essential to note, this realization does not cancel out their previous reading of the landscape. It added to it. Similarly, the sculptural elements of these works add to them in a uniquely generative way unburdened by history. Again, the result of appropriate responses to delicate questions combining materials and genres through an earnest approach. Skluzacek cracks the door open to the essential fact that dialogue becomes more complex as it becomes more inclusive and acknowledges that the richness of inclusivity comes at the cost of constant re-evaluation. These works suggest that the journey is the whole thing and are evidence that a thoughtful and deliberate journey is very much worth doing.