Michael Neff
is an artist, designer,
and photographer living in
Brooklyn, New York.
He is known for The Night Shadow, an ongoing project in which he outlines shadows with chalk and photographs the result.
Neff is Editor in Chief of NSFW Magazine, co-published with photographer and writer Mark Velasquez.
He is also an alumnus of the Rhode Island School of design and currently serves as Co-President of the RISD NY alumni club.
Email info@michaelneff.com
Twitter @heyneff
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All content © 2012 Michael Neff
Shadow Chalk Art
The Night Shadow project is born of an attempt to share a phenomenon I find beautiful. In my travels through the city at night I was constantly encountering thought-provoking shapes projected on streets and sidewalks that were cast by the lights we keep on at night. In an attempt to both draw attention to and temporarily preserve these projections I began outlining their contours in chalk. Chalk, like the shadows themselves, is a fugitive material. At times these drawings have lasted two years, in many cases they are washed away the next morning. I began making photographs of the completed pieces in an attempt to further share these short lived installations and my appreciation for the beauty of the night.
This project is an ongoing series of chalk-outlined shadows at night in cities like New York, San Francisco, Montreal, Seattle and small towns in Oregon and California and began in April of 2006.
Installations
While The Night Shadow is in essence documentation of installation drawings I have recently expanded into more sculptural installations.
My installation of discarded Christmas trees hung under the BQE in Williamsburg, Brooklyn was featured by Animal, Curbed NY, FREEBrooklyn, Gothamist, Huffington Post, Inhabitat, and Recyclart to name a few.
While at the Vermont Studio Center I collaborated with writer Alena Graedon on an installation where I lettered selections of her work in water on a bridge railing in Vermont. The temperature was so cold that the water immediately froze but was very ephemeral, absorbed by the bridge, buffeted by snow, and melted when the temperature rose.
Printmaking
I have been making prints for years. I'm currently experimenting will collagraph, but usually make multiple silkscreen prints, letterpress prints, and relief prints every year.
Cyanotypes
I have been working on a series of cyanotype photograms of unfolded security envelopes for about a year. The long exposure of these prints produces and image that displays all of the marks on both sides of the envelope and the envelope itself.