ARTFOCUS TORONTO ONLINE ART MAGAZINE
A free publication - Editor: Pat Fleisher

CITY KITCSCH SERIES - NEW YORK

The following is a small selection from a series of 25 colour photos taken in a walkaround the East Village of New York City in October l996. They were mostly taken in the area around Tomkins Square Park, or "Red Square," as it is known to its neighbours and inhabitants, like the late graffiti artist Jean-Michel Basquiat, who is said to have been "discovered& quot; emerging from a garbage can in the park.

Although I began as a painter, I have been shooting & exhibiting colour photos in galleries & artfairs since the late '70's. Windows , reflections, mannequins and graffiti have always attracted me. I find in these images a sense of the individual light, style and energy of each city I have visited. The spontaneous natural layering of these "found images" approximates for me the way I worked in my previous "re-incarnation" as a painter (before I became a hopelessly addicted "Arte Editora").

The East Village has a fascinating history as the starting point in New York for many waves of ethnic immigrants, artists & students, who then move on, as their fortunes improve, to downtown areas of the city. (In Toronto this is comparable to the immigration movement of ethnic groups from the Kensington Market/Spadina & the Bloor/Annex area to the more affluent suburbs). But I hope that the photos speak for themselves....

	Cast Iron Door - New York, 1996
Red Stockings - New York, 1996	Trash - New York, 1996

By Pat Fleisher