Urban Mosaic is a personal vision of New York as a network of diverse meaning, changing over time and seen from many perspectives.

It is a continually growing photographic project that presents a vast accumulation of images drawn from the streets and public spaces of New York City, including: architectural details; water towers; bridges; walls and fences; skyscrapers; graffiti; construction sites; storefronts; fire hydrants, parking meters, and other municipal objects; textures of roads and sidewalks; industrial infrastructure—and a multitude of other elements, both small and large in scale.

This profusion of imagery is presented in a regular grid over one or more large walls, including as many as several hundred photographs. Each individual “tile” consists of a single inkjet print, five inches high by seven inches wide, mounted under glass. As the grid progresses, it moves through areas dominated by particular types of images or textures, into others that focus on different aspects of the city landscape—ultimately producing a kind of overview of New York’s proliferating variety. At the same time its dislocations convey something of the city’s ceaseless movement and energy.

The effect on the viewer is to provide a fresh perspective on everyday sights, calling attention to the beauty of details that often, through overfamiliarity, go unnoticed. Unexpected relationships become apparent; colors, textures, shapes and patterns echo through a diverse range of settings to create a unique urban rhythm. Over the course of a large installation, the varied elements of the mosaic can be seen as a kind of language, the multitude of forms articulating the hidden poetry of the city, the words and phrases that only become evident through close observation.