Mary Slusarski's paintings are a stage
on which unspool wicked dramas and magic
rituals. Mary Slusarski's paintings
are windows blown open
onto expansive vistas of encroaching emotions. Color
is taste
is a sharp memory. The surfaces of her
work
are overripe skins covering layers of desire. Figures like soft
puppets are dangled in mid-chase, caught
between threat or salvation.

Mary paints fish of light. Mary
lights sparks in shade. Mary
is not afraid to seduce you into a dilemma, to make you look
into strangers' windows, to implicate you
in fiendish schemes. There is something alien in her
images, something pulsing
up from a dark garden root. The stories
you are about to see
are partly yours. You are her diary.
She is your sneaky kid brother. These paintings
are the bruise of human contact.


© 1991 John Goss