Originally from Akron, Ohio, and now located in Los Angeles, California, Marcel Rozek
uses a staining technique pioneered by the early abstractionists and Washington Color
School artists to create his richly layered compositions. He aligns himself with these
influential artists, most notably Morris Louis, while pushing beyond the technical
successes of his predecessors and creating a new branch in the tree of color field painting.
Marcels approach focuses on discovery within the medium by looking at the processes of
his predecessors and finding what lies in-between. He is interested in the interaction between stain painting color
and the space that it exists within. This interest results in vast expanses of color while working with negative space and shape.
Rozek wishes for these compositions to become a part of the space that they live inside of.
His interest of architecture, history, and color all combine together to create a work that respectively
nods at history’s wisdom, but presents a fresh and vibrant approach to color field painting.
He begins with liquefied paint that he has mixed and diluted before pouring it
directly onto raw unprimed canvas allowing the paint to generate organic shapes and
movement. This method creates puddles of color that overlap and extend into one another
while soaking into the canvas. Though sometimes using acrylic paint, he stands by the
traditional and classic media of oil paint. As the colors converge, overlap, blend, and
bend, they absorb at different rates creating unique color families and blurry, spectral
forms. Rozek considers his work to be a probe into a greater discovery, with each artwork
being a test and experimentation into the unknown. Marcels biggest question is: “What’s
possible?”.
