Artists Registry

My 9/11 Artwork

The tragic events of 9/11 have affected my life, my work and my health. Being both an artist and resident living directly across the street from where the two towers used to stand, my home and studio were both destroyed in a heartbeat. Everything that I earned, created, and loved was reduced to a six foot high pile of rubble. To this day I still have not fully recovered.

To cope with this hardship I turned to my art. My work is mostly about capturing a moment in time; some particular aspect of what I witness touches me and I am compelled to examine and interpret it. This sentiment is evident in my 9/11 work. I feel such a privilege as an artist to be able to experience and hold on to these moments forever through my art.

As soon as I was able, I began to paint directly from my recent photographs. As I got more involved in my work, I noticed the compositions were evolving, deriving their focus from what I was experiencing inside my mind as well as outside my window. I was, and still am, awed by the out-of-body experience I was having at the time. No where is it more evident than in the two paintings Absolute Zero Monday and Absolute Zero Tuesday; I don't even remember if I breathed while creating them. This was the first time I have experienced such a connection to the process of my artistic creations.

As you can see, my work is not about the horrid and catastrophal forces that came with that day, but more about the beauty in the rummage and the energy that surrounded my experience. Interplays of violent forces colors and textures swarm my canvas, while visions of figures and vertical lines emerge from the chaos. The work created in this series is held very close to my heart. I believe these works belong in museums or public spaces on different continents so that people of all types can share this moment in perpetuity.

I have spent many years studying with some of the world's finest teachers in multiple mediums. Each discipline has its own vocabulary and in order to articulate my observations with sensitivity, I must carefully choose the medium I work in. Always a prolific artist, in ten short years I have created a tremendous number of paintings, studied with some of the great art world luminaries, and has begun exhibiting, selling, and winning awards for my pastel, watercolor, and oil paintings as well as drawings and prints.