Staten Island 1934

This is Staten Island by Theodore Roszak, but when? There is no date! Anyway, the dominant color is this moody blue, kind of like a hazy day by the docks. The artist has used a combination of shapes, colors, and textures to create a world that feels both familiar and strange. It’s like he’s trying to capture the essence of a place, rather than just depicting it realistically. I imagine the artist standing before the canvas, brush in hand, lost in thought. Maybe he’s remembering a trip to Staten Island as a kid? Or maybe he’s just trying to capture a certain feeling, a certain mood, in his work. You can see it in the way he's placed that flag, and that green circle is like an eye, or some kind of mysterious machine. Roszak really lets himself go, allowing the painting to evolve through experimentation. It reminds me of other twentieth century artists like Stuart Davis, who also used hard-edged abstraction to convey the frenetic energy of city life. Artists are always riffing off each other, and it's cool to see these echoes across time!