Title: Blue Dancer
Year: 2020-2021
Size: 183x135 cm
Technique: oil on canvas

“Blue Dancer” is an oil painting depicting performers, locals, and tourists interacting near Central Park’s Naumburg Bandshell, a popular live music destination In New York City. The central dancing figure in the painting looms over the viewer to the amusement of the crowd watching in the background. The initial image is painted in layers of striated lines that create a sense of vertical movement, while the rich, blue abstract overpainting is much looser in approach, with glassy, fluid brushstrokes dancing across the surface.
The happenstance nature of how we collect in the city’s public spaces is evident throughout the series, as background characters shift from random tourists to friends and families relaxing outside, yet they retain the tensions of unpredictability that underlie urban living. In paintings such as “Blue Dancer” and “Drum Circle, Central Park” performers interact directly with passersby, the dynamic abstractions sliding across each image, while eliciting the unpredictable nature of improvisation in art, music, and life.