First Painting of the 2011, Title in the Works

"Her Absence Filled the World (after Kentridge)" no. 2

History of New Work in Progress

Evolution of New Work

Brancusi's Mademoiselle Pogany




Kentridge's "Her Absence Filled the World"










Beginning the Animation Process. Image by NVDG

At a Stand Still

A Part Apart

Break of Day

Spiegel im Spiegel

Through the Eyes of My Gender

Through the Eyes of My Gender: An Exploratory Study of the Anatomy of Gender Approx. 7 feet x 4 feet. Mixed Media on un-stretched Canvas. For Detail View and Proposal, see index or scroll below.

Detail of "Gender"

Landscape of Poverty

The collage series Landscape of Poverty consists of the mountainous life-scape of 8 New Yorkers living in poverty in the city that never sleeps, located in the land of opportunity. Through the lenses of 15 years of people watching, I intend to bring to life glimpses of my passerby-view of these eight New Yorkers. Some of them I have know of and seen since I was a teenager and others I have befriended. For Detail View of Each Panel see index or scroll below

Detail: Landscape of Poverty

I have spent a great deal of time working in public schools. I have seen the smiles and frowns of over 7000 children. I only came to realize the most recent statistics about the children living in the NYC shelter system. I began to wonder how many of my students considered the local shelter as their home. I began to wonder how many of my children transferred out of their school because their family had been assigned to a shelter in another borough. I began to wonder about the lengths at which as child has to go through in order to understand their circumstance.



Come the summer, the streets of the East Village will be littered with squatters. Clad in black garb, covered in safety pins, carrying card board signs in one hand and a cigarette and a dog in the other, they will inhabit St. Marks from 3rd Avenue to Alphabet City, from parks to abandoned real estate. They are stereotypically criticized for being New Jersey well-to-do kids with too much time on their hands. Sometimes that is the case, other times it is not. There are others who’ve traveled by choice and by circumstance to the Big Apple. Non-Villagers find them to be an eye-sore. Most Villagers on the other hand consider them to be part of the landscape. I wonder about their stories, their truths and their lies. I wonder about the girl in lumber jack blue plaid shirt. She is often alone, no company, no dog.



I entered the last car of the F-Train last month only to be welcomed by the overwhelming smell of a man asleep in the corner. He was wearing dirty blue jeans, dirty jacket, and a bright blue NY Giants knit cap. His legs were stretched out and his face hidden in the shell of his jacket. He smelled terribly bad. As the train traveled through the Brooklyn tunnels, some of the passengers made subtle attempts to crowd themselves into the opposite corner of the train car. Others however seemed unmoved by the presence of this man and his odor. I stood watching eyes furtively glance toward the sleeping man and other eyes glued to the magazines, novels and train advertisements. The Giants had just won the Superbowl and wondered if he was a fan.



Mark’s malnourished figure was protected by the walls of his overstuffed blue jean jacket. Overstuffed is putting it mildly. His jacket bulged at least a foot from his body at certain parts. He carried no bags; it seemed he kept his life on him, literally. I first saw Mark with his sunken cheeks, stringy dirty blonde hair, and toothless face at Washington Square Park in the 1996. Every time I saw him he was always on the way somewhere; always in transit. In 1999, as an employee at the late Astor Place Barnes & Noble, I watched Mark from behind the café counter, as he asked for change from the customers. He was eventually banned. We became East Village acquaintances and when ever I could, I gave him pastries. We never spoke, just head nods here and there. In the early-mid 2000’s we crossed paths, I smiled and said hello. He stopped. I stopped and asked him how was. He said he’d never been better and he was on his way to a de-tox. He seemed excited. He smiled his toothless smile and asked me to wish him luck. So I did. I haven’t seen him since.



I was told that Jeff was a tennis player, a professional tennis player. According to my bookseller acquaintances Jeff was on his way to “becoming someone” when he busted his knee. In a single swoop, Jeff’s career was over. I met Jeff indirectly as he solicited my bookseller friend Zach for a place to stash his book bag. I’d only ever seen either the top of his head or the bottom of his feet. Jeff was always asleep on the gratings across from the late Bottom Line. His face was beet red, and it has stayed that way through all seasons. His speech is slurred and his body is worn, with his shoulders leading towards the ground. My bookseller friend says he’ll die of wet brain. I pass him still by the gratings. He has met me for the first time over a hundred times.

Detail con't: Lanscape of Poverty

On the 6-train in the mid 1990’s a couple, a man and a woman, entered the train car asking for change. They were married, I noticed their wedding rings. They claimed to have been hoping to make enough money for an SRO (Single Room Occupancy). Actually, only the woman spoke. She led him through the train car. They both carried plastic bags, layered by more plastic bags. Their faces had hints of dirt and their finger nails were dirty. She announced that they both had HIV. The train car shifts and stalls in a tunnel. She is apologetic. She stretched out a dark knitted cap to solicit money. He is silent and follows her. I see them on the 6-train my entire high school career, 1993-1997. A decade later I am on the 6-train, not having thought of or seen the couple. Then she entered. Only she entered. She is soliciting money for an SRO. She is wearing clean clothes and has make-up on, red lipstick. But she is still homely. She carries plastics bags, layered by more plastic bags. Her finger nails are clean. She is wearing her wedding ring. But her silent husband is not following her. I’m half expecting him to enter. She announces that she is HIV positive, and her husband has died of AIDS. I wonder how many people on the train remembered him.



I met Dale during the days when she slept in the waiting room of the women’s shelter waiting and hoping for a bed. She was small in stature, with graying hair. Her eyes were bold and she wore a touch of make-up. She seemed somewhere in her 50’s. In a short period of time I came to learn that Dale had once been a magazine editor, with an expense account, and a top floor office. In time her drinking and drugging landed her without a job, a home, friends, or an identity. As she waited for a bed at the shelter, sleeping in the waiting room for weeks she made efforts to get clean and sober. In less than six months she was able to get clean and sober, and to go through the shelter system into an SRO; a room of her own. We didn’t speak much and she limited doses of her story. I enjoyed seeing her smile. She had very white teeth. Six months or so passed, I hadn’t seen her. I learned that she began drinking again. Shortly thereafter, she had a heart attack and did not survive.



I first encountered the elderly woman at the 7-train platform at Grand Central station whom I referred to her as Granny at Grand Central in the early 1990’s. Even then, she seemed as though she’d always been old. But it wasn’t the kind of old that a child fears of becoming. She was the kind of old where her cheeks were blushed and her skin was flawless in its folds. She sat the bottom of the steps; a brave woman, who seemed unmoved by the waves of Queens-anites walking down the ramp and chasing their train. What I found interesting was that in the times I had seen her, usually in the winters; from 1993-2004, I had not seen her outright panhandle. She had one cane to her left, between the staircase railing and herself and a paper cup to her right, on the step. Passer Byers placed bills and change into it, and although she would take the bills, fold them, and place it in her left breast, I never once witnessed her outright ask for money. I had never seen her arrive or depart, she was always just there, part of the station, unmoved, difficult not to notice, but easily ignored.