{"id":338,"date":"2005-08-17T10:07:24","date_gmt":"2005-08-17T18:07:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/wordpress\/archives\/2005\/08\/mugging_victim_now_obsessed_with_shadows_gets_gallery_commissions.html"},"modified":"2008-01-25T13:19:52","modified_gmt":"2008-01-25T18:19:52","slug":"mugging_victim","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/blog\/archives\/2005\/08\/mugging_victim.html","title":{"rendered":"Mugging Victim Now Obsessed With Shadows, Gets Gallery Commissions"},"content":{"rendered":"

A benign Travis Bickle<\/a>? A less destructive Bernard Goetz<\/a>? No, it’s a post-traumatically stressed former graffiti artist who has become obsessed with shadows<\/a>:<\/p>\n

On the streets of Brooklyn, stray bursts of color have been dotting the urban landscape, fleeting works of art that are impossible not to notice.<\/p>\n

The chalk outlines – often of street fixtures such as fire hydrants, lamps or even buildings – are mysteriously signed “Ellis G. 2006.”<\/p>\n

“My art has always been in the street,” said Ellis Gallagher, a former graffiti artist, as he surveyed a just-finished hot pink tracing of a lamppost with traffic box and street signage on the corner of Smith and Dean Sts.<\/p>\n

He followed the arc of the street lamp into the street, darting into traffic and squatting barely a foot away from slow-moving cars.<\/p>\n

“It’s temporal. And temporary,” the artist said, as cars tread over the pink lines.<\/p>\n

Within minutes of completing a piece, the sun has moved the shadows. People can’t tell how much time has passed since the work was finished.<\/p>\n

Gallagher’s artistic inspiration, however, sprang from a traumatic event.<\/p>\n

Coming home late one night last month, Gallagher spotted a man lurking a block from his house. The man turned up his hood to cover his face, a sign Gallagher knew meant trouble.<\/p>\n

As Gallagher fumbled for his keys, he saw the man’s shadow flicker across his front door. The man, wielding a 2-foot machete, demanded money.<\/p>\n

Police caught the mugger that same night, but Gallagher was still rattled. He became nervous and jumpy, often reliving the moment when the thief’s shadow merged with his own.<\/p>\n

“I became fixated with shadows,” he said.<\/p>\n

Now he spends several hours each day and night on his shadow art, stopping only for work or sleep. He prefers late afternoon shadows that extend far down the street.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

His work will be on display at Smith Street’s Apartment 138 until September 20, 2005.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A benign Travis Bickle? A less destructive Bernard Goetz? No, it’s a post-traumatically stressed former graffiti artist who has become obsessed with shadows: On the streets of Brooklyn, stray bursts of color have been dotting the urban landscape, fleeting works of art that are impossible not to notice. The chalk outlines – often of street […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-338","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-what_will_they_think_of_next"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/338","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=338"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/338\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=338"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=338"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=338"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}