Metropolis
I am obsessed with textures of urban decay and renewal. Metropolis, pictured below, is a mixed media photo collage. The collage consists of multiple layers of hand-painted elements and several photographs. The piece is reminiscent of the late seventies New York when fires in the South Bronx were a weekly occurrence. Street graffiti was exploding. I've always been hyper-focused on subway walls filled with street art. Construction site facades with years of advertisements layered over each other and then torn off, leaving remnants. I passed these construction sites with temporary wooden walls and saw the multiple layers of ads, flyers, and lost items. I would observe that these walls took on a life of their own and looked like giant organic collages of textures, color, and shape. I remember coming home from work in the evening and wondering how to recreate the look in a future painting or collage. The work titled Metropolis, 42nd Street, Times Square, and End of Days was inspired by these observations.
