Australian Street Artist Reka was in town in the wake of the hurricane named Sandy and he found his plans for painting disrupted by flooded train lines, but eventually got up in three places in Brooklyn. On tour from his native Melbourne since July, Bushwick is just one more name to be tacked onto the list of places for Reka (or Reka One or James Reka) along with Amsterdam, Berlin, Bristol, London, Milan, Paris and the countryside in France.

REKA. Bushwick Five Points, Nov, 2012 NYC (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Here he brought his signature abstract portraits rendered in ochre, beige, moss, brown, black, white, rusted crimson and spice red. Typically illustrative of the female form, these figures are full of action with limbs and hands and elbows akimbo, gesticulating into air, flustered and animated with limbs bending from rivets at the joints. With wavelets of the darkest hair spilling and often with breasts barely pinned in or spinning free to make waves, Reka’s ladies in Brooklyn are unhinged consternation, contemplative and concerned, somehow heavy in their cubist side/front viewed expressions.

REKA. Bushwick Five Points, Nov, 2012 NYC (photo © Jaime Rojo)

The forms photographed here by Jaime Rojo may be cognizant of the destruction that New York is still dealing with, where homes are being bulldozed, many school buildings are permanently closed, checks are lost in the mail, and many families are reliant on others for food and shelter. Rendered in colors we associate with autumn, these new Reka figures are of this moment in Brooklyn, even as the artist moves on in search of his next spot to paint.

REKA. Bushwick Five Points, Nov, 2012 NYC (photo © Jaime Rojo)

REKA. Bushwick Five Points, Nov, 2012 NYC (photo © Jaime Rojo)

REKA. Bushwick Five Points, Nov, 2012 NYC (photo © Jaime Rojo)

REKA. Bushwick Five Points, Nov, 2012 NYC (photo © Jaime Rojo)

REKA. Bushwick Five Points, Nov, 2012 NYC . Detail. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

REKA. Bushwick, Nov, 2012 NYC (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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