Undertone

On June 6, 2023 clouds of smoke descended on New York City from fires in the Canadian forests, depositing a yellow haze across the skyline. The next day the smoke was so heavy that visibility was reduced to 15 blocks, giving the city a ghostly appearance. The whole skyline disappeared under a smoky veil. Colors were muted, breathing was impaired, and the sky had a dull orange toxic glow. The city came to a halt as streets emptied and everything was blanketed by an eerie calm.

I woke up in the early hours of the next day with a vision of the vibrant colors and angular brushstrokes of my paintings covered by white paint. Over the following days the smoke slowly dissipated and the city returned to its normal frenzied state. When I went back to the studio the vision stuck with me. I covered the painting on the easel with white paint, bits of bright color sneaking out of the cracks and crevasses of the textured surface. Figures were reduced to shadowy apparitions in a landscape of cloudy shapes and translucent washes of color.

These paintings start with a base layer of bright colors and abstract shapes. On top of this is an undertone of muted colors to establish the composition, over which I paint transparent glazes across the surface to give the picture some depth. This technique resembles photos widely shared on social media where the city looks like a colorless post-apocalyptic landscape punctuated by neon. Painting became a conduit for my feelings about the wildfires, the state of our environment, and the challenges of navigating a world being reshaped by climate change.