Brooklyn Bridge: The Shrouded Series

Mixed media; photography, gouache, watercolors, ink 2015

From 2012 on, the Brooklyn Bridge has been undergoing a long overdue facelift;  its 5,989 ft. span was scraped to it’s metal core, and then painted. The tarps that covered the bridge transformed it into something Christo could have imagined; covered, cocooned, and shrouded, the span turned into a beautiful combination of steel, stone, canvas and human effort, glorified by an accommodating sun. This iconic bridge will never be seen like this again. Ever!

As I took daily walks over the bridge, I was taken by its beauty; the wind created motion in the tarps and the sun revealed its (so many)  layers. I photographed through these layers, and what the camera saw was a cacophony of shadow and light, graffiti and paint, architecture and structure. I was there to catch the sun as it cast shadows, and at night, as the lights of the city illuminated the shroud. I would return to the same spot waiting for the sun to create what would become this project. Then it was my turn. I looked for a way to enhance these images, to add myself, so I created my own layer of paint using gouache and watercolors, and in certain places inked graffiti, to mark this moment in time. Through this project I came to understand, that while a shroud keeps its secrets, it reveals just as many.

images on this site are not mixed media.

Shown at Fabio Scalia Salon, Brooklyn NY from December 2015 - March 2016