In hindsight with foresight I began to make wax emulsion photos of NY entitled NY MeltDown in 1999. I did not know that the events of the early 21st century in NY would lend itself as narrative to the descriptive expressionistic quality of the work.
As a NewYorker I remember those distinct beedy eyed summers where heatwaves would reflect off the concrete and glass of downtown to create mirages and elastic distortions. The street would melt away leaving tar impressions and the people would morph together in a glazed urban vision accentuated and punctuated by the atmospheric sinage and concrete echoes of city noise.
Later after the events of Sept 1l and the subsequent Wall Street crash of 2007, I began to realize that the feeling in my photos of perceptual uncertainty and three dimensional potential was always there, flickering like neon rain off a car window on Broadway with Jazz playing on the radio.
NY is not only unlimited energy and communication. It is the real movement of goods and people. The effort and the beauty of usage. Rusty bridges suspended against glittering surfaces, space and action. It is this feeling of three dimensional change and the shifting spaces of form and actuality that heightens the city senses.
My impressionistic photos approach this sensation by colorizing distorting and perforating the skin of the image.
