The Subway Chronicles are a extensive visual series consisting
of over two hundred life drawings created while the artist
for over two years traveled throughout the New York City Transit
System. From the great “graffiti” plains and train
yards of Brooklyn to the worn out barrios of the Bronx: beauty,
resignation, determination, hope, sadness and empathy manifested
in the faces and attitudes of the portraits of the people
in this tunneled society, day after day. The greatness of
New York and its diversity found expression in the artists
sketch pad.
The work, Shadows and Reflections from Brooklyn is the first
Print issued in a series that is part of a project that is
a work in progress: a culmination of the convoluted and often
dramatic juxtaposition of cultural, religious and political
dogmas, living side by side, together and different, sitting
next to each other on a subway train in a dark tunnel: speeding
towards destiny and the American dream. Like the “M and
W’ trains that weave through Brooklyn out of Stillwell
Avenue in Coney Island, connecting in Manhattan with the “B,
D and 6" and the “E, F and 7" trains that ride
the rails to the outer reaches of the Bronx and Queens, the
miles never noticed or calculated, the artist hopes to accomplish
a series of visual works that wil be a woven tapestry with
drawings and watercolor paintings that will capture the profound
essence of a city that epitomizes the concept and ideology
of diversity and the visual intensity of contrasts: a community
living and travailing together, in Brooklyn, Queens and Manhattan
and the Bronx, in collective harmony, defining the origins
of America: day by day.
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This is a project that the collective systemisits
structure has no interest in. This project has no commercial
value and no political redeeming aspects. It is merely a reflection
of life as New Yorker’s travel through and on the New
York City subway system. Its purpose is to chronicle the beauty
and drama through drawings, watercolors and writings of Americans
meshed together in a collaboration to create and keep the
American dream alive and to convey the diversity that exist
in harmony in our country. A collection of life drawings and
stories created over a period of 3 years that is dedicated
to capturing, through art, the great cultural versatility
of New York City.
The visual work is mainly comprised of portraits executed
while traveling the subways: there are over 200 drawings.
The writings are stories, vignettes, observations and over-heard
conversations while working on the drawings. The watercolors
depict the contrast between the environment and the people.
A statement to the beauty, the power, the liberty that absolute
freedom in America has created and guaranteed: A collection
of as many cultures that are in the world, living and riding
together on the New York City Subway System.
The end result of the above would ideally be a book and or
a showing of the work. Because there are no commercial publishers
or artists associations that have, (or will) respond to this
type of artistic effort the artist is posting the work on
the internet to stimulate interest and support.
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About the Artist
Kenneth Francis Dewey's artwork reflects his unaltered view
of aspects of society that embodies a belief that everyday
life can become an artistic expression that encompasses the
dramatic intensity it declares. Dewey’s illustration
conveys the postulate that "the subject often dictates
the medium" so that the range of medium and style reach
a broad spectrum of technique, application and draftsmanship.
His written work takes form from his direct experience with
the American Justice System and the inequities that abound
in that segment of society. The central theme is woven through
situations and characters and the literary style embraces
various structural disciplines from journalistic to documentary,
expressing the tragedy and comedy of a desolate existence
in a cultural void.
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All Dewey’s work, visual, literary and
illustrative are vignettes- a collection of experiences and
observations-and its main intent is to capture the subject
or character at any artistic expense, without ever compromising
the quality or philosophy of his expression or his view. And
finally to bring the viewer or reader closer to the subject
and situation that he has experienced. A Diva visually demands
the technique of Art Deco, the Shadowed subway riders on the
N train in Brooklyn visually demand pencil and watercolor
as the medium, the old convict in the chapter Death Sentence,
an excerpt from American Gulag, demands a written record without
the limitations of structure, grammar or literary precision.
The publication onyamarks1972: resurrected demands an honesty
that is implicit in the work itself.
It is often said that art reflects life and life reflects
art. This is not a significant statement, artistically or
philosophically. Art remains an enigma, enveloped by postulation.
These categories and stereotypical definitions are not applicable
to Dewey's work. He is neither artist, writer or illustrator,
intellectual, academician or idealist. He solves no visual
problems, has no literary solutions. He records events that
are comprised of applications that successfully convey the
subject of his artistic inquiries. His styles manifests in
inconsistent fragments that remain unimportant in relation
to the subject, its form and its content.
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