Title: Alphabet City
32in x 32in x4in- Mixed Media Raised Relief Sculpture
Currently Available For Purchase
Description: I created 'Alphabet City' out of my love for both the English language and urban environments. I've loved writing and words since I was a little boy. I'd spend much time writing poetry in my bed late into the nights as far back as early elementary school. The Dictionary and the Thesaurus were my best friends. One of my other loves has always been city life. I've lived in Boston, New London, D.C., L.A., NYC, Louisville, San Francisco, Syracuse, Oakland, and many other cities around the USA. I wanted to play around with the idea of Alphabet City in NYC and create a piece of art that showed this in a literal way. I used an old dictionary, plexi glass, and balsa wood to build this city in the sky. The only color I added to this piece was the color blue. I chose to use the natural faded color of the dictionary pages the way they were as the aesthetic to concentrate on. I preserved the pages using a fine art archival spray so that the pages will never fade beyond what I found them like. My goal was to create a fun piece that felt as airy as the sky. I decided to make strips of the dictionary pages which I dripped the blue paint on and hung individually from the bottom of the city buildings. These strips move with the breeze and appear to have movement because of the dripping blue paint that streams across them. The strips act as the personification of rain, while the clouds are built up upon each other creating a depth. The plexi glass clouds also create a magnification which enhances the depth further, while also emphasizing the words and definitions from the dictionary beneath. When the piece is lighten from below the shadows and silhouettes from the cloud's outlines are projected upon the wall surrounding the piece. This was a tedious sculpture to create because I had to hand cut out every 1/2 inch thick plexiglass cloud, but the result was worth it. This piece is fun and youthful and reminds me of what it felt like to dream as a child.
