Alan Wolfson is a born and bred New York artist with a unique passion for miniature urban sculptures. Born in 1948 and raised in Brooklyn he learned to appreciate his urban surroundings from an early age and begun making miniatures in shoeboxes. Shortly after his military service ended, while a student of theatre arts he submitted two pieces of work that won first prize within his university’s art department and from then on his hobby became his livelihood as Alan explains: “I understand that my work is unusual and in some ways indefinable; people don’t know which box to put it in.  And I’ve fought with myself over the years, like, why couldn’t I be a painter like everybody else?  But, for better or worse, this is what I do.”

His latest work is entitled ‘Canal St. Cross Section’ and is built as a core sample, cross-section of the landmark street corner and underpass, as if you just dug it up. The cross-section is a combination of the street scene on top with shops and subway entrance and two subterranean levels of the subway underpass and subway carriage. The beauty is in the incredible detailing – every single square inch is accounted for – even the subway’s graffiti laden interior and street litter. The actual scene is made up of a combination of existing and fabricated environments, all built on the artist’s experiences and imagination. The piece, which took eighteen months to complete, is on show from June 7th – September 18th at the Museum of Arts and Design in NYC…