Federation of Modern Painters & Sculptors annual members' exhibition

 I have 4 artworks in the Federation of Modern Painters and Sculptors' annual members' exhibition at the Prince Street Gallery, 547 West 27th Street, 5th Fl., Suite 504, NYC.  July 9 - July 27, 2024.  Tues. - Sat., 11am - 6pm.  There will be a second, closing reception on July 27, 4pm - 6pm.  I will be there, as will the other participating artists.  So, come on by!  Have a bite to eat and catch a fantastic show before it closes.

If you can't make it to the show at all, here are images of my 4 pieces and an accompanying explanation: 

The urban landscape of New York is my primary subject: I try to convey the wonder and awe of a city as large and grand as New York and, on the flipside, the sense of anonymity and aloneness one sometimes feels, despite the crowds.  As a life-long New Yorker, I have seen how socio-economic changes have transformed whole sections of the city.  Consequently, memory often informs my work, imbuing it with an element of nostalgia.  I also appreciate the narrative aspect that my paintings have, and the "story" I have to tell is about the mutability of the city.  It is a story I know well from firsthand observation.  

 Most of my artworks feature recognizable landmarks, they serve as counterpoints to the surrounding flux of the city.  My subject, though, is really the larger context in which they exist.  It takes several forms:  In Greenwich Village Morning (18" x 24," watercolor & gouache), the imposing Jefferson Market library is front and center; but it is surrounded by a mix of contemporaneous buildings and ones of a newer vintage.  Additionally, cast shadows and reflections on a window hint at a greater reality beyond the picture plane.  However, sometimes a landmark is both the epitome of permanence and change.  That is the case with the Chelsea landmark of Limelight (18" x 24," acrylic on canvas):  It was originally an Episcopalian church built to serve an affluent community in the mid-nineteenth century, but a century later there was no longer a local congregation to sustain it.  Then, in the 1970's the church was deconsecrated and turned into a drug rehab center; a decade later it was transformed again, this time into the notorious nightclub:  The Limelight.  Since then, the area, like most of the city has become gentrified.  The onetime church, reflecting the changing demographics, has since housed a mall and a gym, amongst other things.

While most of my work features exterior views of New York:  Street scenes, building facades, and the like.  I have expanded my repertoire to include interiors, which seems appropriate for a painter of urban settings given how much of city life is spent indoors and the important function of interior public spaces.  The 2 drawings I have in the show are of two different areas of that grand cultural repository:  The Metropolitan Museum.  One, Petrie Court (11" x 14"), is of the skylit, sculpture filled classical French-garden style courtyard of that name; where one can wander around and admire the sculpture or take in a view of Cleopatra's Needle in the distance.  The other, Period Room (11" x 14"), is a dioramic recreation of an intimate eighteenth-century Bordeaux hotel room, which alas one cannot enter.  However, the setup and stagecraft that went into it, can be admired up close.