New York Grenades by Russell Young

As I stepped into the Taglialatella Galleries, there were many colorful paintings and sculptures that have been put on display against the white walls. The painting was labeled “New York Grenades” painted by Russell Young was the first that had caught my eye.  At first glance, you see a marvelous blown up image of a World War II grenade that takes up most of the canvas. The  body of the grenade can be visualized as a vase with the boxy and grid-like skin of a pineapple. There are five rows and four columns of twenty boxes that can be seen from the painting. The boxes on this “pineapple skin” get smaller and smaller as it goes down the columns and reaches the end of the grenade.  The top of that “vase” contains a smooth and circular opening that looks like a huge chocolate rolo, as seen below.

Chocolate Rolo

At the very top of the grenade, there is a rectangular piece of metal covered by a handle, as long as half the grenade. Attached to the long handle, is a large circular ring that takes up majority of the top half of the grenade. The first thing I was reminded of when I saw the colors of this painting was the thermal camera effect found on the photo booth application on my Mac Laptop. The thermal camera effect has four colors captured in the camera: red, yellow, green, blue. However, I need you to focus only on three colors: red, yellow, and black. Now, picture the large grenade described earlier with the thermal effect on only the grenade, contrasted against a solid yellow background, almost the color of mustard. The artist uses all the three colors to bring out the shape of the cubes and outline of the grenade. Other than the unique color choice and blown up image, the diamond dust covering the grenade lures the observer to come closer. The light in the gallery hits the painting perfectly in a way that the grenade was sparkling and makes one almost forget that this is a destructive and deadly device.

The gallery was quite empty when I came in, and that allowed me to take my time with each painting and sculpture. The atmosphere in the gallery was very calm and quiet, that even a whisper would seem like too much noise. All the walls were white and the floor was gray. All the colorful paintings and sculptures provided a pop of color to a plain and dull environment. The white background  lets the whole world fall away and make you feel like its only you and the painting. There were a good amount of space placed between each painting on the wall, which allowed me to focus on one painting without being distracted by another. By the left side of the gallery, there were four employees sitting by two long desks and working. Overall, the environment ends up enhancing our perception of the artwork by providing a clear white contrast against the colorful pieces of art. All the artworks on display shared the common playful and vibrant colors that makes the gallery space all the more enjoyable. It’s as if the paintings are able to speak for themselves and provide all the “noise” with its different colors in the quiet gallery space.

FIT College Mural

The Fashion Institute of Technology mural is painted on the bricks of the building and is quite tall that you would require a ladder to touch the top. The background color of the mural is a baby blue pastel color painted directly on the building, and you are still able to see the outline of the bricks.  The image depicted by the artist that takes up three quarter of the mural is a large New York City 23rd street sign. The street sign is positioned diagonally and is closer to the bottom of the mural. The street sign is so zoomed in that only the center of the sign makes it into the mural. The sign has the traditional dark green color and two thick white lines outlining the top and bottom of the sign. The artist also outlined the sign and letters with black to make the shapes stand out. The numbers 23 are written in a way that the outline of the number starts out thin from the top and gets thicker towards the end. There is a pigeon sitting on top of the street sign with a small olive branch in its mouth. The artist used the colors purple, teal, blue, light gray, dark gray, and white to depict the top portion of the bird only seen in the mural. The pigeon’s pink feet is painted on top of the sign as well, three toes for each foot with short claws extending at the end. The small olive branch held in its beak contains one green olive with two leaves, and a small white crescent shape on the olive to represent a glare.  Directly behind the pigeon’s head, there is a circular sun made up of two shades of yellow. The inner circle of the sun is a yellow-white color, and the circle encompassing the small circle is a light yellow shade. At the bottom right corner, the instagram account @LITTLEFOXLIFE and name of the artist, Kara, is written down.

Murals on FIT building

All the murals painted on the FIT walls were the same size and lined up one after the other. As opposed to the art gallery, the  public artworks are attached to one another and I ended up looking back and forth from artworks, instead of focusing on just one. The atmosphere outside by the murals was completely different than the one in the gallery. When I was viewing the mural, there were people who kept walking in front of me and there were trees placed in front of the art that kept obscuring my view. The murals on the brick wall and the paintings in the gallery are able to alter a space because it transforms a bland and ordinary wall into a masterpiece worthy of people’s attention. However, the noisy and crowded environment by the murals took away from my experience and caused me to lose interest in the art. The mural’s use of the olive branch and light pastel colors was supposed to evoke feelings of peace and tranquility, but the city’s boisterous atmosphere did not match with that aesthetic.