APARTMENTS: small prints

A move to Shanghai inspired a shift in subjects for my prints from common scenes in the forest to common scenes in the city. My Apartments series captures views of the ubiquitous six story walk up apartments that most of the middle class has occupied for the last few decades. In a city rapidly filling up with a forest of modern skyscrapers, these historic low-rise apartments provide rich texture around daily life absent from modern apartments.

These micro landscapes blend the diverse architecture of Shanghai’s recent past with the functionality of modern life. Shanghai is famous for the poles, filled with hung laundry, that jut out from apartment windows. In festival seasons, it is common to see fish and meat drying next to clothes.

People transform their individual units to serve their personal needs and expand their spaces. This is especially true for the older buildings, thus making once generic facades alive with the texture of diverse window designs, porch configurations, a/c unit add-ons, laundry drying apparatus, window security gates and urban gardens. The hanging laundry, a stand in for the people living inside.

Together, these additions create complex layers of visual textures that elevate the blandness of the architecture and reveals the vibrancy of the occupants.

Apartment 42
linoleum block print
15" x 11" (30.5cm x 23cm)
edition of 75
©2024 All rights reserved.

Apartment 41
linoleum block print
15" x 11" (30.5cm x 23cm)
edition of 75
©2024 All rights reserved.

Apartment 40
linoleum block print
15" x 11" (30.5cm x 23cm)
edition of 75
©2024 All rights reserved.

Apartment 39
linoleum block print
15" x 11" (30.5cm x 23cm)
edition of 75
©2022 All rights reserved.

Apartment 38
linoleum block print
15" x 11" (30.5cm x 23cm)
edition of 25
©2022 All rights reserved.

Apartment 37
linoleum block print
15" x 11" (30.5cm x 23cm)
edition of 75
©2022 All rights reserved.

Apartment 36
linoleum block print
15" x 11" (30.5cm x 23cm)
edition of 75
©2022 All rights reserved.

Apartment 35
linoleum block print
15" x 11" (30.5cm x 23cm)
edition of 75
©2022 All rights reserved.

Apartment 34
linoleum block print
15" x 11" (30.5cm x 23cm)
edition of 25
©2022 All rights reserved.

Apartment 29
linoleum block print
15" x 11" (30.5cm x 23cm)
edition of 75