Suspended above the East River on the Williamsburg Bridge the view allows me to  study visual patterns created by the organization of the architecture  across the city and suburbs. The brownstones, and row houses, warehouses of Brooklyn filter out to the dense residencies of Queens thinning out to leafy Long Island–mapping Man’s footprint on nature.

Growing up in suburban Long Island, I watched generic neighborhoods instantly grow out of leveled soil, in rows each identical to the next. Clusters of industrial parks and cul-de-sacs spread as far as one’s can see. Fearing my own identity would be affected by this structural homogeneity, I flocked to the eclectic Brooklyn suburb of Greenpoint. I am attracted to the buildings because each one is filled with history and seasoned with character, each detail labored over and admired by many. In the process of gentrification, these buildings are rapidly being replaced by modern luxury developments–leaving a landscape where remnants of old structures co habit with new.

Collage, in both its two-dimensional and three-dimensional forms allows me to construct layered landscapes that visually explore pattern, structure and time, as well as nostalgia and other sensibilities created by urban and suburban migration.