Tamara Gayer, Brooklyn Origin Story, 2026, ceramic tile and enamel paint on steel, IS @ K004, Brooklyn
Photo credit: Etienne Frossard
Brooklyn Origin Story is a site-specific artwork created by Tamara Gayer for the new IS @ K004, Brooklyn. The colorful and graphic artwork features three printed enamel panels set against geometric backdrops. Each panel depicts a figure from a local monument connected to Brooklyn history and the nearby Green-Wood Cemetery:
Minerva, the Greek goddess of wisdom, justice and the arts, was erected on Battle Hill (in present-day Green-Wood Cemetery) to memorialize the Battle of Brooklyn – the Revolutionary War’s largest battle. Her outstretched hand gestures across the harbor to the Statue of Liberty.
The Greeter, Eh-toh'k-pah-she-pée-shah (Black Moccasin) chief of the Hidatsa tribe, acted as a guide to Lewis and Clark in their journey West. His statue stands in Green-Wood Cemetery by the grave of artist George Catlin, who was the most extensive visual documentarian of Native American life in the time before photography.
The Statue of Liberty stands in New York Harbor with her torch oriented toward Brooklyn.
The artwork amplifies the iconic, heroic stature of these classically inspired figures by setting them in a contemporary style drawn from comic books and print media. Bold tile triangles in green, yellow, blue and red extend from each panel, leading the viewer’s eye across the wall. Images of local plants and birds appear throughout the portraits, emphasizing the important role of nearby Green-Wood, a cemetery, arboretum, bird sanctuary and living monument. These elements encourage students to explore history as complex, layered, interconnected and always in progress. Gayer describes the artwork as “inviting students to expand the familiar narrative of American origins, imagine how they fit within it and author the next chapters of our shared story.”