ARTIST'S STATEMENT

My photographs in Urban Idylls are explorations of the idiosyncratic spaces in Manhattan intended for public leisure and recreation. In these spaces I see the markings of the shifting balance between our need for relaxation and Manhattan’s urban infrastructure. Always, I find myself wondering what impact our architecture and civic planning have on us.

If parks, playgrounds and plazas are the places where we are intended to spend our free time then the sanctuaries we create for ourselves express—in three dimensions—the boundaries that are shaped between free time and regimen. However, these boundaries are rarely stable or well defined. The artificial wildlife, looming/anomalous architecture, and borders of all kinds that describe our refuge in the city all simultaneously demonstrate our ideals and our best, but unavoidably failed attempts to achieve them. In the city our desire for nature, space and autonomy are met with compromise at every turn. This is not to say we fail to provide ourselves with spaces where we can relax. However, the sanctuaries we carve out for ourselves range from soothing to creepy and always serve as a gauge of our tendencies toward organization, development and control.

Winter Gardens, World Financial Center

East River Park

East River, 60th Street Pavilion

P.S. 126, Chinatown

Biscuits & Bath Doggy Day Care, Upper East Side

P.S. 169M, Yorkville

Riverside Park

Urban Plaza, Midtown

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