Assignment 2 - Exploring the Work of Todd Mrozinski

Todd Mrozinski is a Milwaukee based artist with an ever important eye for detail. His works and writing emphasize a clear passion for the minute details in art and nature around us. 

“Mrozinski's work is produced in series, each series relates symbolically to his life experience and grows out of present day observation and inspiration.”

This ‘observation’ is very key to Mrozinski when viewing what he makes. Much of his art exists like a photograph, a still frame captured in time. Catching the sky at a moment of summer sunset, or the snow on a tree during the depths of winter. Of his works that are not nature, this stillness remains. In his series ‘At the Edge of the Table’, he captures half eaten foods, utensils, and other brief moments and items in the kitchen. In ‘Hobbit Haus Drawings’, stills are framed with windows at different times of the day. Mrozinski has a deep appreciation for these moments, seen further in the way he writes about others' Art. 

Mrozinski frames both articles like a kid in a candy store; he has nothing but pure appreciation for the ability to view another’s work. He speaks almost poetically in describing his walks through the spaces, taking note of certain pieces as he passes. In his article on “Inside/Out” at the Portrait Society Gallery, he describes the works as “Salve for the soul”, starting the reader with mystical imagery going forward. Some quotes that stood out to me are below.

“The colors are ultra-saturated and seem to swell with a renewed sense of life”

“I feel like I’m looking through a miniature opening into another world of remembered vacations or imagined oases”

“the youth starts his piano solo with determined vigor like a seed pushing through soil”

Much like his own works, Mrozinski does not view these as simple paintings and art works, but as captured moments of emotion and time. The second article is full of these textured descriptions of work and technique. One quote from this article that perfectly sums up his views is when talking about Cezzane’s work - 

“Paul Cezanne’s “Self Portrait” from 1878-80 is not so much painted as massaged. It is a self anointed portrait which seems to have been built with his thumbs. The clay-like paint is pushed, smeared and built like the mountain, Mount Sainte-Victoire, that he would paint over 60 times in his life.” 

Mrozinski chooses to focus on technical moments in the pieces in this article, naming the painted details before him as clay-like, scraped, conversational, and even internal organs at one point. His colorful language accentuates the visuals and allows the viewer to see through his eyes. To see the work in the complex way he himself sees it. 

While I knew nothing of Mrozinski’s work prior to these readings, I now know he is one to look out for in the art scene. His attention to detail is one that I rarely see in this setting, and I’d love to keep up with his art and writing in the future!

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