Uzca (Marcus Uzilevsky)

Artist, musician Marcus Uzilevsky, known affectionately to his friends as Uzca. has traveled a varied creative journey. Although he graduated from the School of Arts and Design and attended classes at Pratt Institute, he considers himself to be primarily self taught. His odyssey as a visual artist has brought him world wide recognition for his innovative "Linear Landscapes". This style which he initiated in the 1970's is made up of straight lines of color that Uzilevsky builds layer upon layer to form impressions of mountains, sea and sky. Another series are his water color renderings of visual impressions of music. He says of these, "In my various pictorial symphonies, I want to transform paint and canvas into an evocation as vibrant and emotional as a song." These paintings can be seen in the permanent collections of more than 25 museums.

Using the pseudonym Rusty Evans, Uzca toured with his band during the early 1960's. He recorded several singles including "Midnight Special", and jammed with a then unknown Bob Dylan in the cafes of Greenwich Village. After several solo albums and a stint with a folk trio, he joined The New Christy Minstrels in 1966.

In the late 1960's he wrote and produced for several San Francisco bands including It's A Beautiful Day.

In the 1970's Uzca went on to record several albums for Folkways/Smithsonian. Multimedia has long fascinated Uzca. His first venture in this area was a slide show of his art during the performance of his coauthored "Symphony for Sara," by the Arlington Symphony Orchestra in 1988.

His latest effort in merging art and music is the Five Minute Hour meditation series. His intriguing "Vortex" series of abstract drawings on black paper form the visuals for the meditation videos. Accompanying these computer manipulated renderings is his music. Uzca's music is based primarily on his vocalizing a "Universal Language" clothed with original and traditional folk melodies. He regards these sounds as his personal language of devotion to "Spirit".

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