A pile of discarded comics in a factory in Barcelona. A chance find that becomes the starting point for an entire body of work. Mark Malarko returns to BSMT Gallery with 'PLOC PLOC BLOMPF!', a new series of paintings that began with a coincidence and ended somewhere far more considered.
The works carry the colour, rhythm, and graphic intensity of their source material, but they are not reproductions. They are translations. Fragments absorbed, abstracted, and rebuilt through paint, letting the original imagery dissolve into something far more loose and open.
 

'PLOC PLOC BLOMPF!' is about circularity. The comics Malarko encountered were conceived, produced, and later abandoned in the same neighbourhood in Barcelona where he found them years later. This is an exhibition about the past and present folding in on each other. These are not images rescued from obscurity, they are images set in motion again in an entirely new context.

Working with house paint on canvas, Malarko keeps the process direct and physical, no fuss. Malarko edits and responds, letting the source imagery dissolve until what's left isn't quite representation and isn't quite abstraction. It's
somewhere in between. The colour and form from the original comics carry over but the narrative falls away, leaving something that sits between figuration and abstraction- very familiar but at the same time strange.
 

The result is a collection of paintings that asks how images persist, how they shift and accumulate different meanings over time and resurface in new forms. Malarko reactivates fragments of a local visual culture not as an act of preservation, but as a way of natural continuation.

Mark Malarko builds his practice around the found. He's drawn to things that turn up by chance but seem to have been waiting, objects shaped by use and time that carry histories that aren't his but become his material anyway. He
treats these fragments as collaborators rather than sources, letting their textures and residual traces steer the work. 'PLOC PLOC BLOMPF!' marks his return to BSMT, continuing a practice rooted in the belief that what is discarded is rarely finished.

Join us for the private view of 'PLOC PLOC BLOMPF!' on Thursday 14 May from 6-9pm. The exhibition opens to the public from Friday 15th May and runs until 31st May 2026. Opening night refreshments generously provided by our friends at Jubel Beer.