NATIVE EyE 

Drew Carolan's Native Eye Is like a Time Machine taxi driven by the sharpest cabby in the 5 boroughs. I grew up on the lower east side so his images are uncanny to me, embodying moments I've long forgotten and/ or never experienced, like the dreams of a long lost brother. I have seen what he has seen, but he has captured what was fleeting in judicious frames both loose and deftly chosen. He captures moments in time I know exist no more. His love for a city that is no longer is heartbreaking and sweet to me. He has a way with people as well, both incisive and respectful, intimate and removed. He's an historian of forgotten history and an artist able to capture those moments when the ever-transforming city and its people offered themselves up to his camera witness as art, as narrative, and as eternal.

Growing up on the Lower East Side long before gentrification occurred was an invaluable experience, one I only share with a handful of people; Brother Drew is one of the select few who understands how our childhood upbringings exposed us to a limitless cross-section of cultures. It’s one thing to study multiculturalism in college but another thing to live it. Drew lives it and then some.

A poetic visual journey of the big city.

The grit, the glamor, the gritty glamor, high highs and languishing lows all unsparingly caught by Carolan's camera. A camera that he managed to not have stolen. These might mean nothing to those without the eyes to see, but to those who were there when shit was shifting either toward collapse - what we expected - or congealing into a simulacrum of a city - what we got - it will be like looking at your high school year book.

"Gringo will always be looking out over St. Marks Place thanks to this elegantly haunting photo book. How moving to see the grimy New York of our childhood through such loving eyes."