In their first solo show Muscle Memory at Institute 193, artist MC Sparks harnesses the fluidity of paint to explore the malleability of identity. Though the artist pivots between conceptual and formal themes, the exhibition retains a cohesive thread of mutability that gives the paintings space to toss and turn around in self-discovery. The works exist as thresholds, each a pathway to their own universe. Hints of what may lie beyond these thresholds peek out through fantastical bends and curves, like in the genie-esque tail of Sparks’ mermaid in Self Creation (2024).
I was drawn to larger works that commanded space, like Falling into Everything (2024), which seemed to compose the rest of the exhibition around itself. Depicted in the work, a figure is presented in repose, peering down to veil their face behind a camo ball cap. Existing in liminal space, somewhere neither totally in nor out of the background, the work embodies themes of transmutation that nod to Sparks’ own gender transition journey. Within the work, both body and space sit drenched in a camouflage wash of warm browns and soft whites that suggest the end of a season.
This same dense brown fog is what captivated me in Resting Place (2024). Working as a pair with Memory Visitor (2024), the pieces serve as bookends, according to the artist. Placed at the front of the gallery, the paintings emerge as pillars of commemoration to what was, ushering visitors into the rest of the exhibition. Caught in Resting Place, I circled familiar twisting tree forms that once again escaped the confines of a background to snake over and through objects in the composition. A heart-shaped grave presses into the landscape, buried but allowed to emerge in brief intervals through pops of fire orange leading up to a deeply-saturated blue horizon. Another piece pushing graphic color, Melody Maker (2024), provides the greatest twist and turn yet, in waves of music where notes take the form of half-bitten apples. Symbolic fruit, alongside cross motifs in Sparks’ work, remind viewers that firm roots planted in the Southern bible belt of Georgia are at work, despite the artist’s relocation to Brooklyn.
Exaggerated limbs, impossible landscapes, and a weaving of unexpected objects meld together in the work to create a surreal paste that teeters off into the elsewhere. While this juggling act could so easily become untethered, Sparks’ work finds grounding, particularly through lone figures that carefully tip-toe around the inclusion of recognizable facial features. In the exhibition’s finest moments, the viewer is easily swayed into this tricky work of letting go of the recognizable, allowing the background to sweep over starkly outlined material. Muscle Memory left me with reverence for the way Sparks is able to play with all the power paint can muster to tell an enchanting story of self-discovery.
MC Sparks: Muscle Memory is on view at Institute 193 in Lexington through November 2, 2024.
