Brad Davis

The New York Harbor has always been an inspiring landscape for me each time I visit the city and the 30 minute ferry ride from Staten Island provides just enough time to capture the experience in my sketch book. I took some of those drawings and put them together to create an image that highlights the most impactful moments from this harbor world. Bastille Street is an oil tanker situated across the water between the oncoming ferry and the perspective of the viewer. I wanted to draw a comparison between the shape of its bleak smoke stack and those found in the iconic Manhattan skyline. I loosely based the composition off of elements from the J.M.W Turner painting "The Burning of the Houses of Lords and Commons". By setting the tone of the painting dull and blue, I sought to emphasize the missing tower through a blazing sunset that tears across the overcast sky.