The BROOKLYN WALL FLOWERS Project
2016 - 2018
Select Works
About the Brooklyn Wall Flowers Project:
Brooklyn is home. Brooklyn is tough and beautiful. Like most of New York City, our borrough is most often labeled, marketed and sold as "gritty" and "rough" to non-New Yorkers. Many people hear Brooklyn and they conjure images of water tower outlines in harsh black and white, or concrete and steel in HDR. However, Brooklyn is more than that - always has been. Even our toughest blocks have backyard gardens.
The Brooklyn Wall Flowers Project aims to highlight the overlooked natural beauty of our neighborhood streets to contrast, but also to complement the industrial, urban "grit" imagery that's being marketed to outsiders. These "street flowers" if you will, hide in plain sight in sidewalk beds, front yards, or potted on stoops. Just like the human residents that have been here for generations, they are often unseen or ignored by passers-by. The titles reflect the blocks where the flowers lived - the street and its closest cross-street.
Just like people, there is a perceived and an actual image. There is a surface and something deeper. Brooklyn and its residents are a wild combination of diverse, contrasting traits. From afar or at quick glance, one might simply see a pretty flower. Soft, delicate, smooth and bright. Take a closer look and you will recognize that there is not a rounded, soft element. Each flower is made up of only straight lines with harsh corners forming hundreds of intricate triangles. Look even closer and one discovers the metallic texture reflecting behind the colorful surface. The lines, corners and metal allude to the roughness of Brooklyn. The mosaic-like facets reminds us how multifaceted our home is. Lastly, I chose the solid, black, reflective background for two reasons: One is to reverse the effect of not seeing the small, simple beauty in our every day life and highlight the flower above all. And two is to let the world around the piece be reflected in the image itself. Wherever a particular piece ends up living, its environment will be a part of it.
The Brooklyn Wall Flowers Project consists of three series. To see more works, please continue scrolling.
