A new painting I’ve just completed — 12 x 12 inches.
On my mind was this city I theoretically have been living in, continuously, but that I have barely seen during the pandemic.
I’m pretty certain I’ve never logged so many consecutive days and nights in these boroughs, in what rounds to a lifetime of New Yorkerness. And I know for sure that the only times I have felt more detached from this place are the intermittent times in my life that I haven’t lived here at all.
But I do live here, have lived here, skulking around the neighborhood in my mask, making surgical strikes for necessities. Now, despite the rising R nought, I’m venturing out more because I’m vaxxed and masked and honestly I can’t stand my world being the size of my apartment anymore. As lucky as I am in all respects, which I am.
So all this on my mind this piece emerges. The figure is a stencil I made, based on a drawing I made, based on a selfie I took in the mirror. I think it’s so weird that we never see ourselves accurately in our lifetimes, or the way that others do. That we only have these reflections that are flipped and distorted in weird ways, depending on glass and angles and lenses.