Secret Layer: Gathering Magic with Proxies
From Here to Sunday presents
Secret Layer
Gathering Magic with Proxies
Curated by Mark Zlotsky
September 18 - October 11, 2026
Opening Reception: September 17, 6-9pm
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Magic the Gathering is a thriving trading card game dating back to the 90’s. It’s full of wizards, goblins, elves, and dragons - all the fantasy goodies anyone could ask for. Some folks play it casually, while others compete in tournaments. There are collectors who don’t play, and players who don’t collect. Despite its nerdy first impression, Magic tickles people’s creativity and captures their imagination. Secret Layer: Gathering Magic with Proxies celebrates a crafty manifestation of that creativity: drawing our own cards!
Secret Layer features a collection of hand-drawn Magic cards created by seventeen artists. These one-of-a-kind cards are called proxies: custom-made versions of existing cards. Proxies are usually created to stand in for cards too expensive to collect, or perhaps add a little personal flair to a deck.
Each proxy is a tiny, playable artwork. While not every artist in the exhibition plays Magic, their work captures the fantastical spirit that permeates the Magic community. From punky counter-culture collages to silly light-hearted watercolors, the proxies represent the many ways people make Magic their own.
The name Secret Layer pokes fun at Magic’s Secret Lair, a product line featuring limited-run drops with guest artists and franchise cross-overs. Rather than buying into manufactured scarcity, this exhibit invites us to see Magic as something to shape, reinterpret, and make ours. Layer also alludes to the artists themselves - the techniques, materials, and secret sauce that make each card unmistakably theirs. Secret Layer lets go of the hobby’s culture of scarcity to remind us what’s most important: it’s a fun game we can play on our own terms.
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THE ARTISTS
• Ana Krent (@ana.sketch)
• Clayton Skidmore (@claytonskidmore)
• Dante Cioffoletti (@praisefortheurchineel)
• Dellon Myette (@whitetigertablecraft)
• Dom Carillo (@the_vvizard)
• Gabi Parez (@gabotheghoul)
• HiBye (@hibyetiles)
• Hot Head Collective (@hotheadcollective)
• JP Kim the Person (@jpkimtheperson)
• Mago Archive (@magoarchive)
• Mark Zlotsky (@mzlotsky)
• Nafubi (@nafubi_dungeon)
• Sam Laddin (@objectflux)
• ShinYeon Moon (@shinnyoni)
• Steven Zych (@bigboygametime)
• Tim Huesken (@ghostonehundred)
• Xavier Petromellis (@havier666)
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ABOUT THE CURATOR
Mark Zlotsky (he/him) is a Brooklyn-based artist with a background in architecture. His practice is driven by curiosity and guided by a short attention span; he follows ideas across different materials rather than sticking to a single medium. Mark illustrates, builds furniture, embroiders, and, as one half of the collaborative artist duo Mookntaka, creates large-scale interactive inflatable sculptures and pop-up installations around the city. He believes in making art you can actually play with.
Mark got into Magic a few years ago, and quickly learned how fun (and expensive) the game is. He is more interested in playing than collecting, so he started drawing proxies. That scratched an itch he forgot he had.
Drawing cards reconnected Mark with the doodled monsters that once filled the blank spaces in his homework. Magic cards became the perfect canvas to get messy and loosen up parts of his imagination that had calcified from designing bathrooms and chairs. Secret Layer grew from that rediscovered joy and a desire to make space for those doodles that live in the margins.