Canyon of Heroes

Acrylic on canvas

56" x 38", 2002

The title of this painting refers to a section of lower Broadway in Manhattan, which runs through the financial district. The World Trade Center was located a few blocks west of this street. The city uses this street to hold its famous “Tickertape Parades”, to celebrate such things as New York Yankees and New York Mets World Series championships. At these celebrations the heroes are paraded up Broadway, and showered with confetti by the spectators in the surrounding office buildings.

In my painting the heroes are the citizens of New York City who are escaping the destruction of the burning World Twin Towers. I tried to capture the awful fear and terror that people were feeling by painting the sky fiery orange. I tried to make the fear more palpable by showing the fire at the street level, as well as at the rooftop level and at the towers themselves. I included a man video-taping the scene from a rooftop. I was trying to capture the terrible violence of the destruction.