"The City Is My Muse" - The Work Of Chris DAZE Ellis at MCNY

One of my favorite exhibits this year happened to come at the end of 2015 as The Museum of the City of New York presented Chris “Daze” Ellis: The City is My Muse. The exhibition is a supreme visual journey through the five boroughs as seen in the paintings of Chris Ellis, a.k.a. Daze, who gained notoriety and fame as a teen painting trains in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Later, he led the path to show in galleries and museums worldwide bringing this sought after art form to the foreground in the art world.

Curated by Sean Corcoran, Curator of Prints and Photographs at the City Museum, The City is My Muse includes older work on canvas as well as his more recent paintings of iconic NYC scenes and settings like Times Square, Coney Island, the Staten Island Ferry and the intricacies of the subway system. The show features dozens of paintings, photographs and etchings.

Ellis, who attended High School of Art & Design in Manhattan, began his transition to studio art in 1980 at Sam Esses Studio as part of a two-month project to introduce the best graffiti writers to the studio setting. Throughout the 1980s, Ellis diligently developed a studio practice that drew upon the original energy and attitude of the graffiti movement and combined it with more traditional modes of figurative representation and narrative, using spray paint as well as oil and acrylic.
From the Staten Island Ferry to the Lower East Side streets and those of the South Bronx back to Coney Island, no one captures New York City as he does, have a look and see the exhibit in person which runs through May 1, 2016. Not to miss!

Fort more information visit http://www.mcny.org and follow Daze here: @dazeworldnyc & www.dazeworld.com.