Houston has a knack for knocking things down, and painter and Glassell School instructor Ken Mazzu has been showing up at a good number of those demo sites during the past 10 years, snapping the photos he then works from to render the bent rebar and crumbled concrete on canvas. The somewhat abstract painting shown here comes from the wreckage of the Kenneth Franzheim-designed Prudential Building that used to stand on Holcombe Blvd. in the Med Center until it fell a little more than a year ago.

Oh, and are there more:

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That’s another Kenneth Franzheim-designed demo, the Downtown YMCA on Louisiana St., which went down in May 2011:

Below: The remains of the buildings at Kelvin and Dunstan in Rice Village, before Hanover started putting up the 6-story mixed-use complex that’s filling up with retail tenants.

Here’s Mazzu’s take on the old Ben Milam Hotel on Texas Ave.:

Any of these look familiar?

Many more of Mazzu’s paintings are on exhibit at the Cloister Gallery inside the Christ Church Cathedral at 1117 Texas Ave. And Mazzu says the paintings will also be part of a group show opening this June at the Art Car Museum at 140 Heights Blvd.

• Fine Art Paintings [Ken Mazzu]
• Ken Mazzu: Landmarks of Memory [Christ Church Cathedral]
• Previously on Swamplot: Hanover at Rice Village Feeding the Hungry, Daily Demolition Report: Ben Milam’s Last Stand, with Bells & Whistles, Smashing a Med Center Icon to Bits, M.D. Anderson Med Center Tower Collapse Will Be Streamed Live This Weekend, M.D. Anderson: Prudential Building Demo Site Will Sit Vacant for Years, Watching the Walls Fall at the Downtown Y, Starting Now: Downtown YMCA Is Coming Down, Sonoma: Bolsover Bulldozer

Images: Ken Mazzu