A cluster of box cars line the front edge of the parking lot; there’s a distant lone tree there, and also a painting that I hung on the side of one of the cars. It’s a little pink square to the left of the tree that has a little white sign beside it.
The detention center is huge, abrupt, and jutting from its broad foundations. Without detail, it suggests a stately presence, maybe an imperial building, like you could imagine two party banners hanging in the recesses on either side.
The purple office windows give a sense of the scale. It’s a large office complex and probably built into what used to be a factory. It’s strange to see it facing some boxcars and a desolate parking lot (probably not where the main entryway is).
The wide field of pavement between the buildings and I. Its patches are like mottled clouds. It’s a dark but still sky. Somehow relates to the actual sky above.

Office Building And Detention Center, Sunset Park Brooklyn
August 2019 in Summer
11 x 9.25 x 1 in. (frame), 7 x 5.5 in. (artwork)
oil colors, acrylic, paper, fiberboard, museum board, veneer plywood, epoxy, polyurethane

Frames are hand-fabricated by the artist

Series 4
David Eli Tompkins