Rebels on Decks

Rebels on Decks

Inga Guzyte’s Art of Recycled Skateboards Takes Off

By Charles Donelan | December 16, 2021

The Anapamu Street facade of Sullivan Goss, An American Gallery, looks friendly with a dash of imposing. As the city’s premier gallery, its status complements the Santa Barbara Museum of Art across the street. Established artists such as Hank Pitcher, Nicole Strasburg, John Nava, and Angela Perko have been with the gallery for several decades. Individual works on display are priced as high as five or six figures. Its archival holdings stretch into the 19th century, and the gallery has published handsome scholarly monographs on master artists including Ray Strong. Leon Dabo, and Lockwood de Forest. Sullivan Goss looks like a pillar of the art establishment because it is one.

This accumulated prestige makes the story of the gallery’s breakout star of the moment that much more interesting. Inga Guzyte, a 37-year-old immigrant from Lithuania by way of Germany, just sold out her solo show Young Sparrows. According to the gallery’s owner, Nathan Vonk, this maintains Guzyte’s perfect record of selling every work she’s ever shown at Sullivan Goss. 

To say Guzyte’s work is distinctive is an understatement. Even in an era of relentless innovation and stunt-like conceits in the visual arts, Guzyte’s dynamic and colorful portraits stand out. Going by visitor responses to the work’s impact, it practically jumps off the wall. According to Vonk, “It’s not all the time when somebody comes in and says, ‘That’s the most exciting work I’ve seen by anybody in a long time,’ and that repeatedly happens whenever we show Inga’s work.”