Barracks 2
2009
oil on canvas
10 x 24"
Around 2007, I began making small paintings of abandoned army barracks in Fort Tilden, on the Rockaway Peninsula. Now decommissioned, Fort Tilden is part of Gateway National Park. In 2010, I revisited the paintings, imaginine a 16-foot rise in sea levels, caused by the Greenland ice sheet sliding into the ocean. In 2012, Superstorm Sandy struck, with a 16-foot wall of water. The water has receded, for now, but the area has been completely transformed, covered with sand from what was once huge protective dunes. I am revisiting the barracks once again, looking at a landscape covered by a blizzard made of gray sand. The paintings now come in sets of three.