Danielle De Jesus’s Ode to Puerto Rican Bushwick
about 3 months ago (02/08/2024)
Danielle De Jesus’s Ode to Puerto Rican Bushwick Skip to content Danielle De Jesus, "Puerto Rican Rosary" (2023), oil and packing material on canvas, 48 x 60 inches (all images courtesy Danielle De Jesus) Artist Danielle De Jesus grew up near the intersection of Jefferson Street and Knickerbocker Avenue in a Puerto Rican household in Bushwick, a Brooklyn neighborhood that has steadily gentrified since the mid-aughts, when artists began establishing studios in the warehouses near Flushing Avenue. While the area is still synonymous with a certain brand of oddball creative, White professionals priced out of Manhattan and Williamsburg have moved further east on the L train, where real estate speculators have brand-new apartment complexes lying in wait. Preserving the identity of the neighborhood that endures in spite of these changes, De Jesus uses her practice to document the Nuyorican community, depicting scenes of her childhood and centering the neighbors and friends she grew up with.