Newark Changing is an interactive visual encyclopedia featuring 2,400 photo comparisons from 1959-68 vs. today. The project illustrates the combined impacts of urban renewal, slum clearance, highway construction, and decades of demolition by neglect. Through a historic map, users can explore dozens of neighborhoods and thousands of demolished homes. This research highlights the devastation faced by communities due to decades of anti-urban policy decisions by the government and anti-black investment decisions by corporations.
As published by Newark Public Library. Visit: NewarkChanging.org/map VIEW PUBLICATION >
I created this 26 by 45-inch ink on paper panoramic drawing of the University of Michigan’s campus. The image required 300 hours of work 18 months. Prints can be ordered in various custom sizes.
Contact me to download source files or to order custom prints mailed to your home address. VIEW PUBLICATION >
In fall 2019, LinkNWK, the company that manages free wifi hotspots and advertising screens in downtown Newark, invited me to display my artwork on their kiosks. I selected several dozen of my artworks and images that document the demolition of historic neighborhoods and the demolition of community spaces. VIEW PUBLICATION >
What if the nationality of every artist represented in the Museum of Modern Art’s collections were mapped to illustrate the museum’s evolving geographic diversity from the 1920s to today? Watch this data visualization that shows the provenance and geographical origins of 121,823 works of art selected from MoMA’s collections. Explore supporting data visualizations and interactive dashboards. VIEW PUBLICATION >
According to the Metropolitan Museum of Art Related: Data analysis and visualization of 120,000 works in the Museum of Modern Art In this film, each colored dot indicates one location represented by art in the Met’s online database. Dot location indicates artwork provenance. Dot size indicates the number of objects from this place. The time each dot appears corresponds to the year this work was created. This data is assumed to be an accurate sample size. Over the past few years, the Metropolitan Museum has catalogued over 25% of its holdings online. This represents ~590,000 objects, covering over 5,000 years… VIEW PUBLICATION >
Here are a few of my digital models that can be explored in virtual reality. Cathedrals. Mosques. Prisons. Dream houses. VIEW PUBLICATION >
This project features a portfolio gallery of my drawings, watercolors, paintings, and photographs of Manhattan island. The portfolio is divided into ten “walks” over the chapter structure of ten “days.” Each “day” features some of my artwork about a different neighborhood of Manhattan: Chinatown, SoHo, East Village, West Village, the High Line, Madison Square, Midtown, Central Park, Riverside Drive, Morningside Heights, Harlem, and Washington Heights. VIEW PUBLICATION >
Murphy Varnish, built in 1886, is one of Newark’s oldest factories still standing. Its brick walls, terracotta ornament, and intricate brickwork reflect a time when industrial structures were more than just functional. Murphy Varnish reflects a time when industry was central to Newark’s wealth and key to its future success. It is a monument to industry, built to last. Recent renovation efforts promise to turn this derelict structure into a community of apartments. VIEW PUBLICATION >
Vanishing City is a visual documentary and photo essay about architecture and redevelopment in Newark. An abandoned barge sinks in murky waters. A former factory tumbles before the wrecking ball. A sea of weeds lays siege to a vacant home. An empty lot is a gaping hole, a missing tooth, in the urban body. As a wall crumbles to the ground, a tree, anchored to the wall, reaches for the sky. VIEW PUBLICATION >
Dedicated to Professor of Economics Brendan O’Flaherty for helping me apply to Columbia as an undergraduate.
The following video lecture contains paintings and photos I compiled while walking in New York. VIEW PUBLICATION >
Excerpt from the Common App essay I wrote in 2015. This essay on the experience and love of walking accompanied my successful undergraduate application to Columbia University. VIEW PUBLICATION >
In this visual essay of drawings, paintings, and photos I explore my walks in Manhattan Chinatown. Chinatown is both static and dynamic: Static in its resilience against gentrification, dynamic in its cultural interplay between past and present, immigrant and American. VIEW PUBLICATION >
This series explores movement. These sculptures made of paper, wire, and wood are powered by the wind. When placed before a light breeze, the pinwheels spin and power the sculptures’ cyclical movements. The bird will soar. The horseman will charge forward, lance at the ready. Each sculpture evokes the theme of movement. VIEW PUBLICATION >
From left to right: clock tower at Newark Broad Street Station, backyard of my childhood home, imaginary factory scene at night
Growing up in struggling, inner city Newark, the gritty urban environment inspired me. Newark’s abandoned factories and rust belt industries are fuel for my imagination and inspiration for me to reflect on the passage of time through my art.
A visual essay of artwork and photos from my experience of walking in the South Bronx.
Strolling in the Bronx, I am arrested by the inner-city grid that stretches mile after mile. Block after block, street after street, a never ending treadmill of bodegas, tenements, hair salons, C-TOWN supermarkets, strip malls, and laundries. In the treadmill of the city grid, I become an explorer lost wandering. I retrace my footsteps. VIEW PUBLICATION >
A photo essay and artist’s statement about the geography of decline and landscape of abandonment in contemporary Detroit. VIEW PUBLICATION >
These drawings are my imaginary reflection on water, ships, and the machinery related to water. The stylized smoke, waves, and night sky are inspired by Japanese woodcuts and Art Deco architecture. VIEW PUBLICATION >
A visual essay featuring some of my watercolors, pastel images, and ink line drawings of the New Jersey Meadowlands. These images – both real and imagined – were inspired by industrial scenes I saw outside the train window when commuting between home in Newark and school in Hoboken, NJ. VIEW PUBLICATION >
In the New York City of my imagination, dinosaurs emerge from the Museum of Natural History to prowl “the city that never sleeps.” They roam the streets engaging in dinosaur-like activities: scaring people, stealing from butcher shops, and terrorizing the skyline. For one night, the city belongs to them.
Created in middle school out of wood, cardboard, and pastel cutout drawings of building silhouettes, preserved online as souvenir. Length: 6 feet / 1.8 meters VIEW PUBLICATION >
The impressive range New York’s architecture, from the humblest home to the slenderest tower, is expressed through this model of my memories. With a base measuring 28 by 36 inches (70 x 90 cm), I built this model in middle school out of wood, paper, and plastic. It contains several dozen of the city’s landmarks, skyscrapers, people, lampposts, subway stations, and a bevy of operating subway cars. VIEW PUBLICATION >
The following images are political style cartoons about nationalism, fascism, and communism. They are drawn in the pedantic and high-contrast style of propaganda images from the Soviet Union. The rigid use of geometry and symmetry represents the oppression these regimes stand for. VIEW PUBLICATION >
These drawings are my imaginary reflection on water, ships, and the machinery related to water. The stylized smoke, waves, and night sky are inspired by Japanese woodcuts and Art Deco architecture.
I built this dollhouse over several years. Balsa wood, cardboard, and salvaged scraps. Odds and ends – such as bottle caps, fabric scraps, and earrings – became the ingredients for model furniture. Created in middle school. One of the first models I ever created. VIEW PUBLICATION >
These ink-on-paper panoramas show cities I visited. The tiny details on windows, roofs, and streets were all created from memory when I was in middle school. VIEW PUBLICATION >
Seeing the old Essex County Jail as a middle school student was one of my first exposures to architecture. In this series of drawings and visual essay, I reflect on the building whose history and power later went on to shape my studies of architectural history. VIEW PUBLICATION >
A selection of artwork, drawings, and paintings of imaginary worlds VIEW PUBLICATION >
Inspired by the 1930s sculptures of Italian Futurism, this “tree” made from Zome erector kits is part sculpture, part Tower of Babel, and part abstract spaceship. A flood light by night casts shadows on the plaster ceiling
Base: 3 feet diameter (90 cm)
Height: 8 feet (240 cm) VIEW PUBLICATION >
