Mounds Off the Hackensack is a series of oil paintings I completed in the aftermath of Hurricane Irene in the fall of 2011. The following text is an exerpt from my monograph Disaster Off the Hackensack, in which I introduced the paintings and their premise.
Hurricane Irene pounded the Hackensack River in August of 2011 and
caused mass flooding. The streets closest to the river were most affected,
revealing a changed landscape in which yards and sidewalks were strewn with dirty water and garbage. The storm had moved into, across, and through this landscape. It reflected a fluid process that led to changes in land and form. It appeared to me as an exemplar of disintegration of form and suggested a world in a state of flux and perpetual motion. The Hackensack and its post-flood landscape presented itself as a microcosm of a state of devastation that exists on a much larger global scale. Following the flood I began a painted investigation of the storm’s effects on the watershed. The following works were composed through a process fusing disparate collaged elements with observed perceptual study. May 2012
Hurricane Irene pounded the Hackensack River in August of 2011 and
caused mass flooding. The streets closest to the river were most affected,
revealing a changed landscape in which yards and sidewalks were strewn with dirty water and garbage. The storm had moved into, across, and through this landscape. It reflected a fluid process that led to changes in land and form. It appeared to me as an exemplar of disintegration of form and suggested a world in a state of flux and perpetual motion. The Hackensack and its post-flood landscape presented itself as a microcosm of a state of devastation that exists on a much larger global scale. Following the flood I began a painted investigation of the storm’s effects on the watershed. The following works were composed through a process fusing disparate collaged elements with observed perceptual study. May 2012
