JOSH GOLDSTEIN: ARTIST STATEMENT

I try to create art that encourages the viewer to engage with the chaos and density of New York City. Those menus slipped under the door; the tags and graffiti covering the local deli; the newspapers left behind on the train and littering the sidewalk; the daily bombardment of storefront signs. These might otherwise seem like a strenuous test to one’s inner zen, but I elevate them to the level of indigenous icons.

The soul of New York City resonates in the cacophony of divergent wants, needs, and desires, of its citizens, both past and present, all crammed together in a seemingly uncaring urban landscape. Overlapping functions, intermingling histories, and colliding cultures work together to create strange and ambiguous new relationships. It is this frenetic layering that inspires my work.

Taking what the city gives me, I turn up the volume even higher, depicting not an unlivable urban environment, but rather a richly colored, deeply layered tapestry constructed of images from the street that New Yorkers encounter (and struggle with) every day, but rarely see.

– Josh Goldstein

RANDOM INSPIRATIONS: SCRAPPLE FROM THE APPLE

manhole covers L.E.S. tenement doors construction sites shuttered storefronts Chinese take-out menus Coney Island snack bars rooftop pigeon coops Brooklyn roofscapes mango ladies Chinatown buses car stereos blasting bachata Roosevelt Avenue Cross-Bronx Expressway Senegalese knock-off watch hawkers subway musicians Canal Street view of Brooklyn and Manhattan from Kosciuszko Bridge Bomb Squad Beats Fulton Street potholes Chinatown rooftop graffiti Sunset Park helado vendors the 7 train Hassidic message boards Bensonhurst's 86th Street West Indian hot sauces dollar vans kebob carts bodegas scratchiti wheat paste posters stop sign stickers newstands Redhook ballfield food vendors rush hour delivery trucks delivery bikes hustlers Russian street-side bakeries Times Square empty lots really ugly buildings sweat dope sneakers roti shops the Cage guys playing pick-up basketball in street clothes community gardens grabbing a slice underground food courts in Flushing cab drivers Spanish Harlem P.S. 261 steamy summer days in Brooklyn day laborers on McDonald Avenue the fountain in Washington Square when there is no water in it black outs lunch carts off of 6th Ave. in midtown B&H Photo REVS paan windows of Jackson Heights Urdu newspapers chino latino Mermaid Parade Shakespeare in the Parking Lot Habana Outpost sari shops on Liberty Avenue