The intention of Gotham Bestiarum is to create illustration work, using the animal as a vehicle, that speaks to and from the dynamic and experimental textures and patterns of everyday life as I walk through urban spaces. My motivation in my work is above all to ask how to understand social behavior in the urban spaces more broadly.
Zebra Lady
“Zebra Lady”was selected for #ArtElevated, the first street exhibition organized by Orangenius and the The Garment District, on display on 38th Street in Manhattan.
Afternoon Date
18”x 28” Acrylic over Illustration board. Greenwich Village, Summer 2018
In spite of vast differences and marked inequality, a basic democracy emerges in the mundane experience of walking on the street: we pass one another, we walk through the shadows of the same buildings, the light of a single sun. In the painting, the experience of navigating difference is inflected with the city’s embrace of desire in difference: here, the giraffe gazes, with anxiety and longing, at the mediated version of the hippo she is about to meet in the unmediated light that celebrates the encounter of difference.
The Last Rhino
18"x 28" Acrylic over Illustration board. The East Village, Spring 2018
With the death of the last male white rhino this year, only two female rhinos were left, effectively spelling extinction for the species. In this painting, a single rhino searches on social media for companionship or, simply, for meaning. Bringing together climate catastrophe and more ordinary social suffering, the painting evokes a contrast in climates
Latterday Nighthawks
14"x 24 Acrylic over Illustration board. West Village, Summer 2017
In New York, as in so many other cities, gentrification has meant displacement and visually marked the cityscape. Here, an illuminated coffee shop welcomes colorful characters. Just next door, however, an abandoned storefront implies another story and imparts to the viewer a sense of loss in contrast to the hyper-branded, impersonal, and generic spaces that both claim place and dis-place.
The Commuters.
12"x 30" Acrylic over Illustration board. L Train Brooklyn Bound, Fall 2017
W Train
18”x 60". Acrylic over Illustration board. W Train Manhattan Bound, Winter 2016
The train depicts an ordinary scene in New York City life: people waiting to get on the train while others rush out. On a backdrop of collaged newspaper, colorful, personified animals show the vibrancy of city life, on the one hand, and, on the other, point toward a darker reality, namely, that of life against a backdrop of intense mediatization.
Smoking Gals
"Smoking Gals" was selected for Latin American Ilustración 6. Winner and exhibit in "Los Diez".
Lunch Time at Bleecker St., spring 2016.
Morning Commuters. Fall 2015.
Election week in Manhattan. Fall 2016
Couple at Central Park. Fall 2016.
Creepy guy in the R Train. Summer 2014.
Train Conductor close up. Summer 2014.
Vintage Train
Series of illustrations inspired by vintage photos of New York's commuters. Imagining the past of the city through its transportation, I give each character a personality and playful, and occasionally irreverent, qualities. From this play with the city's collective memory, I express my vision of New York's colorful urban landscape.
