Preston painter exhibits works inspired by 9/11
PRESTON – Local painter Stephen Flanagan has dedicated his professional life to digging for treasure. For the last three and a half years, cooling towers, elevator motors and twisted metal panels from the 2001 World Trade Center horror have consumed him.
The cooling towers have bundles of chopped up copper pipes that, to the Preston painter, look like a heart or an organ.
“I wanted the images to shift into abstractions, biomorphic compositions that would bring a new, perhaps more beautiful life to these tragic remains,” he said.
Flanagan’s paintings of actual World Trade Center debris, which came about after six months of letter writing and interviews at New York City Police headquarters, will be exhibited from Aug. 12 to Sept. 23 at the Earlville Opera House Gallery, East Main Street, Earlville. An opening reception is from 6 to 7:30 p.m. Saturday.
Flanagan was permitted to take pictures at the Fresh Kills landfill in Staten Island and a scrapyard in Green Island. Some of those actual photographs also appear in the exhibit.
The opera house and gallery’s executive director said the quality of Flanagan’s submission more than a year ago for a showing was “amazing” and “something we knew that we wanted to show.”
“It is rare that the review committee award an A+ designation to an artist the first time through,” said Patti Lockwood-Blais.
The collection is called “Restless Sky.” The title was chosen because Flanagan believes that a cloudless, bright blue sky seems somehow different since 9/11 when the terrorists’ planes flew into two of the World Trade Center’s buildings. “It used to be the harbinger of nothing more than a beautiful day,” he said from his studio in Preston.
Interestingly, when “Restless Sky” appeared in galleries in New York City, there were no references needed to describe the paintings’ origins.
The paintings display a basic desire to resurrect abandoned materials and imbue them with a new life. For the past 25 years, all the subjects of Flanagan’s work have had their origins in discarded machines and outdated technology.
“These ruminations on the passing of time, of obsolescence, have parallels in the passing fads of the art world - one movement replaces with the next - a phenomenon whose pace had only increased in modern times,” he said.
Flanagan, who also resides in New York City, was awarded a bachelor’s degree in fine arts from Cornell University. His work has been exhibited at Caelum Gallery, Mercersburg Academy, Gallery New York and many other galleries across the United States. He has received grants from the New York State Council on the Arts and has been reviewed in the New York Times and the San Francisco Chronicle.
The cooling towers have bundles of chopped up copper pipes that, to the Preston painter, look like a heart or an organ.
“I wanted the images to shift into abstractions, biomorphic compositions that would bring a new, perhaps more beautiful life to these tragic remains,” he said.
Flanagan’s paintings of actual World Trade Center debris, which came about after six months of letter writing and interviews at New York City Police headquarters, will be exhibited from Aug. 12 to Sept. 23 at the Earlville Opera House Gallery, East Main Street, Earlville. An opening reception is from 6 to 7:30 p.m. Saturday.
Flanagan was permitted to take pictures at the Fresh Kills landfill in Staten Island and a scrapyard in Green Island. Some of those actual photographs also appear in the exhibit.
The opera house and gallery’s executive director said the quality of Flanagan’s submission more than a year ago for a showing was “amazing” and “something we knew that we wanted to show.”
“It is rare that the review committee award an A+ designation to an artist the first time through,” said Patti Lockwood-Blais.
The collection is called “Restless Sky.” The title was chosen because Flanagan believes that a cloudless, bright blue sky seems somehow different since 9/11 when the terrorists’ planes flew into two of the World Trade Center’s buildings. “It used to be the harbinger of nothing more than a beautiful day,” he said from his studio in Preston.
Interestingly, when “Restless Sky” appeared in galleries in New York City, there were no references needed to describe the paintings’ origins.
The paintings display a basic desire to resurrect abandoned materials and imbue them with a new life. For the past 25 years, all the subjects of Flanagan’s work have had their origins in discarded machines and outdated technology.
“These ruminations on the passing of time, of obsolescence, have parallels in the passing fads of the art world - one movement replaces with the next - a phenomenon whose pace had only increased in modern times,” he said.
Flanagan, who also resides in New York City, was awarded a bachelor’s degree in fine arts from Cornell University. His work has been exhibited at Caelum Gallery, Mercersburg Academy, Gallery New York and many other galleries across the United States. He has received grants from the New York State Council on the Arts and has been reviewed in the New York Times and the San Francisco Chronicle.
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