New York Narratives

she came to america, tesse who was an icon of New York, in early more innocent days,
when blood and toil were one and…
jeanette sprang the young, albert and matthew frolicked in familiar landscapes, dad worked for the 7th precinct on delancy street, we visited boobie, I played with karin every Sunday… and the new york series was born of the popular haunts, institutes of notoriety & places of cultivated preferences…
all that remains now are these thumbnails and, like quequay’s coffin, they sustain me…
i alone am left to tell the tale

MONTHLY FEATURE FOR MAY 2013

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Chelsea Hotel

[30 x 22]
Prisma Pencil on Paper.

The New York Narratives are a series of commissioned works of art. The challenge was to find an image that could represent the locals of NYC and its surrounding areas. The choice was made to use a robust ‘immigrant’ figure to act as a generic icon.. so, a grandmother figure was selected, full breasted with a babushka on her head, she would haunt these various positions in the art.

Along with the icon one of the main criteria was to incorporate typography… the commissions challenge was to uncover a variety of treatments & opportunities for experimentation as to all the assorted ways typography could play an artful part in the totality of the composition as art in-and-of-itself. So the integration of image and type became the elements in the playground of the depictions.

The “Chelsea Hotel” (illustrated here) is one of such works. Here the typography delivers structure to the work as the image incorporates a poetic rambling. One facet of the title takes on a ‘look out the window’ approach thus the reverse presentation of the word ‘hotel’. Assorted stains, handprints and shattered glass personify the environment as it hints at some of the legends born in that abode. Does 7 days represent the 31 days of a month in compressed time or as lost opportunity? Does the parchment module of the piece, with its frazed image, indicate loneliness, loss or voyeurism? Does the broken glass indicate fragile intercourse or moments of frozen time? The typographic execution in the NY Narrative pieces dances in playful revelation. Words are scares as the image is tattered & torn or edited & fractionalized or presented in a repetition of image. These works exist with the apology that they are exclusively the only non-nude works of the artist.