pastel – Myles Zhang

Pictures of Newark

January 11, 2016 Browse All Work, Drawing Newark, Short Films

As a proud, lifelong Newarker, I’ve spent much of the past few years painting and photographing my changing city. Pictures features a selection of my work, complemented by Mussorgsky’s seminal composition: Pictures at an Exhibition. Five movements out of an original fifteen are selected, each of which represents the feel of a certain part of Newark. The following five locations are featured:

THE PASSAIC RIVER – Promenade (1)
ESSEX COUNTY JAIL – With the Dead in the Language of Death (13)
MOUNT PLEASANT CEMETERY – Promenade (8)
DOWNTOWN NEWARK – Two Jews: One Rich and One Poor (10)
PORT NEWARK – Promenade (3)

Curious about the history of the Essex County Jail? Explore this interactive exhibit.

Rusting Barge

Pulaski Skyway

Roman Ruins

Corbin St.

Old Industry

Craneway St.

City in Autumn

Newark Broad Street Station

Waiting for Demolition

Industrial Zone

Symmetry

This Way to Freedom

Gulf Station

Essex County Jail

The Chimney Falls – 2008

Sunset on the Passaic

Drawing by Myles Zhang

A Sense of Scale

Essex County Jail

Big Nation, Big Tires

Waiting for Demolition

After Hours

Downtown Newark

Port Newark

Essex County Jail

Featured work from the above film

The Little Library

July 14, 2015 Assorted Art & Writing, Browse All Work

Here is a small outdoor library I designed for Hamilton Park in Jersey City.

Urban Triptych

February 10, 2015 Browse All Work, Drawing Newark

As a child growing up in struggling inner city Newark, the gritty urban environment always inspires me. Newark’s abandoned factories and rust belt industries are fuel for my imagination and inspiration to remember the passage of time.

Popup Park

October 19, 2014 Browse All Work, Handmade

Situated in front of New York City’s Flatiron Building is a triangular spit of land bordered by three major streets, Fifth Avenue, Broadway, and 23rd. The currently underutilized space could become a vibrant public square. Such a park should reflect the vitality and dynamism of its neighborhood. Thousands of pedestrians pass through this highly visible intersection daily.

Popup Park creates a mixed use public space that adapts to its many users. Narrow metal panels measuring three by five meters roll out of a wedge-shaped storage container. Each panel serves a different function: bleachers, benches, bookshelf, public mural, basketball hoop, etc. When in use, the panels are alternated to adapt to multiple uses. When not in use, the panels slide back into their container, leaving an open communal space. Each panel is arranged according to the Fibonacci series or the golden rectangle. This permits a functional and aesthetically pleasing composition to be incorporated into each panel. The square’s periphery is arrayed with trees to shade the communal area and to offer a respite from the hectic concrete jungle.

Sketch 1

Sketch 2

Sketch 3

South Bronx

October 16, 2014 Browse All Work, Drawing New York

Strolling in the Bronx, one aspect arrests me every time: Homogeneity. Block after block, street after street, a never ending treadmill of bodegas, tenements, hair salons, C-TOWN supermarkets, strip malls, and laundries. I ask myself, “Wasn’t I just here before?” I become an explorer lost wandering the Sahara; I retrace my footsteps.

And then . . . There is the ceaseless cacophony of Spanish speakers, buses, and autos. The chaotic maze of streets leads me to fantasize walking thru a painting by de Chirico. The copious signage for SHOES, SHIRTS, PIZZA, etc. hints at shabby decadence. The never too distant fast food joint hints at obesity in a quality food desert. The din of distant cars on the Cross Bronx or Major Deegan hint at childhood asthma. I momentarily immerse myself in the urban grid.

After many hours, I spy an elevated subway stop in the far distance. I take the next southbound train back to Manhattan. I must return to the Bronx soon. The outer boroughs beckon.

To read more about my walks in New York, click here.

Marble Hill Home (2662 Kingsbridge Terr)

This home is still occupied (2662 Kingsbridge Terr).

Subway Trestle (228th & Broadway)

Parking Attendants (232nd & Broadway)

Pedestrians wait for bus (228 & Broadway).

Latino family strolls to Target (Marble Hill Projects).

Latino couple in South Bronx

Riverdale Home (246th & Cayuga)

Children’s Dentist (Kingsbridge & Heath)

Discounted Gold

Communion Dresses

Lady wearing shirt reading “Heart Breakers” passes Amiga Fasion.

Copious Signage (233rd &Broadway)

Tenement Row on Kingsbridge Road

King’s Pizza (Sedgwick & Kingsbridge)

Garbage Collector

Kingsbridge Corner Bodega

Metro Sunday Sidewalk School teaches Biblical stories.

Broadway & 242: Last Stop

Elderly lady crosses Kingsbridge Road.

Haircut on Kingsbridge

New Jersey Meadowlands

August 20, 2014 Assorted Art & Writing, Browse All Work

The meadowlands, nestled between New York City and Newark, is a strange sort of interstitial zone. It belongs to neither nature nor to man. The grasslands and birds of nature are abundant. Yet, so are the derelict factories and warehouses of yesteryear. The unwanted detritus of civilization is cast off into the meadowlands, ranging from garbage to industry.

Through this region of indeterminate identity pass millions of commuters on their way to and from work. Many look out the windows of passing trains, planes, and cars. Yet few care to observe the lapping tides and bizarre beauty of this unwanted strip of land. The views below are drawn from memory. They show various scenes from my daily train ride on NJ Transit between Newark Broad Street and Hoboken Terminal.

Shell Oil Monopoly

Premonition of a City

Railroad Station

Power Generators

NJ Meadowlands

Buried Treasure

Jersey City Factories

Industrial Zone

Old Industry

Meadowlands

Hackensack River

City in Autumn

Hackensack River

Overhead Power Lines

Industial Beachhead

Factory Yard

After Hours

Sunset on the Passaic

Power Generators

In the Forest

August 20, 2014 Assorted Art & Writing, Browse All Work

Strolling through the forest alone is a magical experience. The world of nature embraces me from all sides, making me feel at one with it. I momentarily transcend time and the ephemeral nature of my existence. I am at one with the eternal.

Grand Central Terminal

June 17, 2014 Browse All Work, Drawing New York

I admire the beauty and bustle of Grand Central Terminal, a truly grand public space.

Information Booth

Grand Concourse

Clock

Main Waiting Room

Grand Central

The Little Steam Crane that Could

June 17, 2014 Browse All Work, Handmade

Below is a small scale model of a steam crane I built. Many of the small parts are made from found materials such as copper staples, beads, and metal brads.

boom detail

crank detail

Arbeit Macht Frei

June 17, 2014 Assorted Art & Writing, Browse All Work

Dino-Ville

June 16, 2014 Assorted Art & Writing, Browse All Work, Drawing New York

In the New York of my imagination, dinosaurs emerge from the Museum of Natural History to haunt the city “that never sleeps.” They roam the streets engaging in dinosaur activities: scaring people, stealing from butcher shops, and terrorizing the skyline. For one night, the fabled city is theirs.

Museum of Natural History

Seagram Building

New York Public Library

Little Italy

Dinosaur’s Eye

Empire and Chrysler

Political Cartoons

May 11, 2014 Assorted Art & Writing, Browse All Work

The following images are political style cartoons, mocking nationalism, fascism, or communism. They are intentionally drawn in the pedantic and high-contrast style of propaganda images from the Soviet Union. The rigid use of geometry and symmetry is an intentional effect.

Shell Oil Monopoly

Land of the Free (homage to Germania)

God Bless America

God Bless Nationalism

Communism (homage to “Sleeping Peasants” by Millet)

Homage to McCarthyism

Fascist Monopoly

The Last Proletariat

Coca-Cola and Chairman Mao

Long Live Capitalism

Paranoia and the JFK Murder on TV

Bullying Hurts

McDonald’s Fast Food Slaughter Machine. This image is inspired by H.G. Wells 1895 book The Time Machine. The world above is a peaceful garden. Monsters live in the world below; they emerge only at night with their nasty machines to harvest people for “USDA approved grade A” burger patties.

A Goliath made of corporate logos fights a tiny David dressed as Uncle Sam.

Water

May 11, 2014 Assorted Art & Writing, Browse All Work

The images below are a graphic reflection on water, ships, and the machinery that surrounds the movement of water. The stylized representation of smoke, waves, and night sky is inspired by Japanese woodcuts and Art Deco paintings.

Lighthouse

Waterworks

The Big Wave (from Hokusai)

Old Lowell Mills

Metropolitan Museum

March 23, 2014 Browse All Work, Drawing New York

I often draw artistic inspiration from the Met Museum in NYC.

Asian Wing

American Wing

Main Rotunda

Temple of Dendur

New York Architecture

March 19, 2014 Browse All Work, Drawing New York

Walking in New York City is always an adventure. No two streets are the same as the dynamic city constantly evolves (not always for the best). A glassy new skyscraper climbs from the bedrock. The soaring suspension bridge spans the flowing river, a reminder of an older New York of docks and shipping vessels. Millions of anonymous people pass me on the bustling sidewalk. For me, it is sometimes strange experience of being simultaneously known and unknown. I know exactly where I am and where I am walking. Yet, I am simply another face among countless millions; I am anonymous. Like the buildings and bridges people have grown to accept as a way of life, I vanish into the crowd. I become merely a helpless extension of the hectic bustle of New York.

View from Hoboken NJ

View from Central Park

View from Brooklyn Heights

DUMBO Neighborhood

Brooklyn Bridge

Municipal District

Midtown

Manhattan

View from Hoboken

Hoboken Terminal

Newark’s Hidden River

March 2, 2014 Browse All Work, Drawing Newark

It is ironic that Newark should ignore the very river it was founded on – The Passaic River. It was the pristine wooded river our city’s founding fathers first saw in 1666. It was our city’s artery to the sea and industry’s source of income. It was the throbbing, flowing heart of our city.

After the automobile, the Passaic was no longer the watery highway of old. It is now this industrial town’s polluted heart. The bland corporate towers of Newark’s “Renaissance” meet our city’s industrial past at the riverbank. The murky waters contain secrets that will remain forever unknown. The industrial past clings on, refusing to vanish in forgotten waters. The river of change, the Passaic River, is a place of shifting contrasts where past meets present.

The river flows on.