The exhibition features four local artists whose work invites reflection on nature, memory, and connection to place, and is part of the NYC Department of Cultural Affairs’ City Canvas program that turns construction sites into art exhibitions
May 14, 2025 — Flatbush, Brooklyn, NY — ArtBridge and CAMBA Housing Ventures, Inc. (CHV) are pleased to announce Views of the Natural World, a public art exhibition featuring four Brooklyn artists: Tatiana Arocha, Darla Ebanks, Mary Mattingly, and Avani Patel. Each artist contributed imagery to surround Clarkson Estates, a Passive House affordable and supportive housing development, with their artworks installed on the construction sheds on Clarkson and Parkside Avenues, between New York and Nostrand Avenue.
Clarkson Estates is a $238 million public-private investment in the Flatbush neighborhood of Brooklyn that will create 328 homes for youth aging out of foster care, low-income and formerly unhoused families and individuals, and formerly incarcerated individuals. The development will include CAMBA’s onsite supportive services, over 30,000 square feet of community facility space — offering an extensive network of programming and amenities including a full-size basketball court — and nearly 15,000 square feet of parking. The property was formerly a one-story parking garage adjacent to SUNY Downstate Medical Center and was awarded to CHV through the State’s Vital Brooklyn initiative.
The exhibition is made possible by City Canvas, an initiative of the NYC Department of Cultural Affairs that transforms the city’s temporary protective structures into platforms for artwork, driven by collaboration between local artists and communities. The artwork will be on display for the duration of required construction fencing.
Completion on the overall project is scheduled for summer 2026 with leasing anticipated to begin next year. Applications for the affordable apartments will be provided at that time through the NY Housing Search portal.
Installed along Clarkson near New York Avenue, Tatiana Arocha’s “Arrullos de los árboles, cantos del colibrí, memorias impresas en mi” is influenced by the artist’s interactions with plants and animals of the Colombian rainforest. Her texturally detailed and immersive composition was created through digitally painting and collaging plant and animal life — the flora and fauna stand out in black and white, juxtaposed with a rich background of marbled colors. Further down the block, Mary Mattingly’s “Night Gardens” will shift our focus from the treetops to the ocean. Exploring nature through the lens of underwater life, Mattingly imagines how plants might migrate and mutate when fully submerged. Blending elements of myth and nature, her digitally collaged photographs utilize vibrant colors and textures to portray an underwater wilderness.
Parkside Avenue presents nine individual works by Darla Ebanks interspersed with those by Avani Patel. Ebanks paints intuitively, and her work is often inspired by scuba diving — many of her paintings include colors of the sea like deep blues and greens. Similar colors can be found in Patel’s paintings, which use pattern and repetition to mirror the changing rhythms of the natural world. Rendered brightly with drips and dots over large expanses of color, her paintings installed here were developed over many months of contemplation. The themes explored by these four artists reflect the priorities integrated into Clarkson Estates’ design of maximizing green spaces with landscaped courtyards, setbacks, and a rooftop community garden. Clarkson Estates was also designed to Passive House standards, ensuring exceptional energy efficiency and green building practices.
“Installed outdoors for the Flatbush community to explore and enjoy, this exhibition offers viewers a moment of pause to contemplate their own relationship to nature” said ArtBridge Curator and Senior Program Manager, Rebecca Pristoop. “It was a joy to identify so many artists working in the neighborhood that devote time and energy into considering the natural world, especially while navigating Brooklyn’s urban environment. As neighbors pass by, I hope they feel connected to that sense of calm that can often be found in nature.”
“CHV is pleased to continue our 10-plus year partnership with ArtBridge to feature artwork by local Brooklyn artists on the construction site for Clarkson Estates. Local art adds beauty and improves the pedestrian experience for Flatbush residents while we work to bring much-needed affordable and supportive housing to the community,” said CHV Chief Administrative Officer David A. Rowe. “We believe a strong connection to the community is critical for the success of our developments, and incorporating art from local artists adds to this connectivity. We are proud to once again support local artists and provide economic opportunities to the neighborhood during construction.”
“Our City Canvas program opens up a world of possibilities for artists and communities to work together to create public artwork that bring life, energy, and vitality to the streetscape through installations on protective structures,” said Cultural Affairs Commissioner Laurie Cumbo. “These extraordinary designs by artists Darla Ebanks, Tatiana Arocha, Mary Mattingly, and Avani Patel will transform the site of this much-needed housing development into a dynamic platform for works of imagination and natural beauty, reflective of the deep commitment to sustainability of the building’s developer. I thank ArtBridge and their partners for bringing this incredible installation to life.”
About ArtBridge
Founded in 2008 by artist and designer Rodney Durso, ArtBridge empowers emerging artists to transform construction sheds and fencing into a canvas for art. ArtBridge works with communities and artists to develop large-scale exhibitions that represent local narratives and cultures. ArtBridge’s exhibitions have provided prominent public exposure for more than 200 artists, and have covered over 50,000 square feet of public space.
About City Canvas
City Canvas allows for the installation of large-scale, temporary artwork on protective construction structures — namely construction fences and sheds — throughout the five boroughs. City Canvas is a collaboration between NYC Department of Cultural Affairs, the Office of the Mayor, and the NYC Department of Buildings designed to improve the city’s visual landscape, while giving artists and organizations opportunities to bring their work to public space.
About CAMBA Housing Ventures, Inc. and CAMBA, Inc.
CAMBA Housing Ventures, Inc. (CHV) develops, owns, and manages affordable, supportive, and sustainable housing throughout New York City. Our developments respond to the urgent needs of underserved neighborhoods with community assets that transform lives and create legacies for future generations. CHV was founded in 2005 as an affiliate of CAMBA, Inc. — a nonprofit supportive services organization founded in 1977. CAMBA currently provides over 180 high-quality programs across New York City and reaches more than 80,000 people annually, including almost 11,000 youth, with six interconnected program areas: Economic Development, Education & Youth Development, Family & Community Support, Health, Housing Stability, and Legal Services.
Over the past 20 years, CHV’s portfolio has grown to include 17 developments with 3,000 homes. This represents nearly $1.3 billion in public-private partnership and provides stable housing for more than 7,500 families and individuals. CHV and CAMBA form a unique team, with CAMBA providing onsite supportive services and tailored case management to all tenants living in CHV’s developments. CHV’s developments are sustainable, high-quality, and energy-efficient, and provide residents with a healthy, stabilizing, and beautiful home. We envision diverse, thriving communities where affordable housing helps tenants succeed and improves the local economy.
About Tatiana Arocha
Artist Tatiana Arocha’s art practice explores intimacy between people and land, rooted in personal memory and her immigrant experience, and centers on community through public art interventions and transdisciplinary knowledge exchange. Most often, Arocha’s works vivify and reconstruct the vulnerable tropical forests of her homeland, Colombia, confronting the ecological, emotional, and cultural loss caused by extractive economies and colonial practices. Arocha studied illustration and graphic design in Bogotá, Colombia. She is the recipient of numerous awards and residencies, including a MacDowell Fellowship, and her work has been exhibited at Sugar Hill Children’s Museum of Art & Storytelling, BioBAT Project Space, Queens Botanical Garden, BRIC, Brookfield Place/Winter Garden, MTA Arts, Goethe-Institut Kolumbien, and Hilton Bogota Corferias.
tatianaarocha.com
@arocha.tatiana
About Darla Ebanks
Darla Ebanks, born in Honduras, is a Brooklyn-based self-taught artist. The ethos of Darla’s art is based on her life: her paintings are an expression of a feeling, or a feeling she is searching to acquire. Her pieces are never titled as she prefers for viewers of her work to experience it and form their own ideas without any outside influence. Darla founded My Gallery NYC, a gallery located in Crown Heights, Brooklyn, as a space to exhibit her own art and offer other artists a chance to promote their work in a space they could call their own.
About Mary Mattingly
Interdisciplinary artist Mary Mattingly is best known for her large-scale sculptures of ecosystems and imagined futures. She is influenced by her experience growing up in a town where the drinking water was contaminated with agricultural chemicals, framing her understanding of the fragility of clean water access. Her sculptural ecosystems that prioritize food, shelter, and clean water have resulted in participatory projects around the world. Mattingly’s work has been exhibited at the Brooklyn Museum, Storm King Art Center, the International Center of Photography, MoMA, the Barbican, Seoul Art Center, and the Palais de Tokyo. She has received fellowships and residencies from the Guggenheim Foundation, the Yale School of Art, A Blade of Grass, and the Anchorage Museum among others. Her work has been featured in Art21, The New York Times, and Le Monde.
marymattingly.com
@marymattingly
About Avani Patel
Artist Avani Patel explores themes of nature, personal experience, narratives, and memory through the use of mark-making and repetition in drawing and painting. She holds a BA from Penn State University and an MFA from Temple University. Her paintings have been exhibited in New York, Providence, Philadelphia, New Jersey, Ohio, Virginia, Chicago, Dubai, Panama, Portugal, and Mexico. She hopes her work inspires viewers to think differently about the world.
Media Contacts:
ArtBridge: press@art-bridge.org, 646-450-1463
CAMBA/CHV: Alison Zaccone, alison.zaccone@camba.org, 929-625-0602