9/11 ELEGY[“Footprint panel] (panel 1 of 9) 2001, acrylic and ash on canvas, 60 in x 60 in
EJAY WEISS
EJay Weiss, a native New Yorker, studied architecture and painting at Pratt Institute. He developed an architectonic view of the picture-plane, evolved over 30 years as a geoscopic perspective. The spatial evolution of his paintings, engage the viewer in ways, which-topologically redefine the parameters of painting. Weiss’ work is in collections on five continents. He lives and works in his studio in the Chelsea neighborhood of Manhattan, about a mile and a half north of the World Trade Center.
Based on the artist’s personal and profound experience as a witness to the destruction of the Twin Towers, the 9/11 ELEGIES: 2001-2011 exhibition includes a chronological series of twelve paintings. The first three panels portray the initial destruction of the Twin Towers. The 5’-square (Footprint Panels) and the rectangular panel (the Redemption Panel) represent the following day. The next six (Ghost City) panels, completed in September 2002, reflect a year of clean-up and clearing of the WTC site, as well as our emotional environment at that time. The final three panels (the Resolution Triptych), were completed in 2011.
Unlike Picasso, who was in Paris when the German’s bombed the Spanish town of Guernica, Weiss was a direct witness to 9/11, and as Robert Frost said in his poem A Road Not Taken, “that has made all of the difference.”
Gallery
*Photo of Ejay by Hugh Browne
