My work as an artist is linked to my way of being in the world.  Painting is my means to externalize what is internal to get a good look at both.  My goal is to use my vision and skill to demonstrate how I observe at a particular time in a particular place.  Through my work, I hope to capture a version of events that can resonate and communicate to others- the true feelings affirming the goodness of city living.

Working in an Urban Landscape provides a guide for understanding city lives, and my own life.  Conventional Urban studies focus on the Social Sciences and quantifiable data, missing the importance of city art which can enrich and explain life in a city.  Art can represent the experience of city living as it records and responds to what people feel, fear, desire, dream, and hope for.

I am interested in what I call charged sites, places that have endured drama, tension, sorrow, and joy.  My images do not always focus on these histories, but they can stir recollections and reflect the history and experience of city life.  They inspire stories and the retelling of these stories enriches the collective memory.   For individuals and communities, it may be said that memory is identity, at least and essential part of it.  To lose your history and memory is to literally no longer know who you are.  I believe we have all, to some degree, witnessed the consequence of such a loss.

City art can remind, refresh, and inspire communities to appreciate their shared history to make sense of their present while simultaneously evolving and creating a new narrative for their future.


                                                 – Nancy Flanagan