The Distance From Here · Seed painting 04 / 04

3,504 Feet from Here

Name: 3,504 Feet from Here
Brand: Michael James Freedman
SKU: MJF-DFH-3504-ORIGINAL
Price: 1200.00 USD
Availability: InStock

Arturo Alberto Baez Cordero

Michael James Freedman · Oil on linen · 18 × 18 inches

Several moments held in one painted field.

$1,200.00 USDUnframed original

$50 USD shipping · U.S. and Canada only.
Applicable tax calculated at checkout.

Stays in the exhibition. Ships after the exhibition ends.

Buy now The story ↓

White, blue, and black vehicle forms and wheels compressed together in the oil painting. Red, yellow, green, and blue vertical strokes with fine brown branching lines above the vehicles. — 3,504 Feet from Here · The complete paintingClick to enlarge ↗

The person

Arturo Báez Cordero.

September 14, 2025
Second Avenue & Ninth Street, Brooklyn

Arturo was a filmmaker, editor, and director. He spoke of continuing his family’s filmmaking legacy and of his work on a documentary about natural resources and their protection.[1]

Listen

Read the transcript

Elegist: Arturo Báez Cordero made films. With his wife, the actress Lia Lizardo, he founded Oeuvre Studios in New Jersey.

Sociologist: He came from a family of filmmakers and artists. He was thirty-four.

Elegist: On September 14, 2025, he was driving through Gowanus.

Sociologist: At Second Avenue and Ninth Street, another driver ran a red light and hit Arturo's car. Arturo died at Brooklyn Methodist Hospital.

Elegist: Seven years earlier, a road crash in the Dominican Republic had killed his father, the filmmaker Fernando Báez.

On September 14, 2025, another driver struck his Mercedes at Second Avenue and Ninth Street, forcing it into a third vehicle. Arturo died at the hospital. He was 34.[2]

Looking closely

The knot of vehicles.
The movement of paint.

Two details from the oil painting. Click to see the complete work.

White, blue, and black vehicle forms and wheels compressed together in the oil painting. — **Bodies interlocked.**Wheels and grilles hold their forms inside the compressed vehicles.

Red, yellow, green, and blue vertical strokes with fine brown branching lines above the vehicles. — **Upward and outward.**Fine color rises and branches from the point of impact.

Three vehicle bodies meet in a compressed knot. From their point of impact, red, yellow, blue, and green marks rise while fine brown lines branch outward. The surrounding paint pulls the eye back down.

Impact and aftermath occupy one painted present. For a work connected to a filmmaker, that compression of time is especially resonant: a moving sequence inhabits an eighteen-inch square.

3,504 feet in a straight line from Littlefield to Second Avenue & Ninth Street. The title brings the loss into the gallery’s surrounding neighborhood.[3]

Part of The Distance From Here

One of four
seed paintings.

3,504 Feet from Here is one of four seed paintings in The Distance From Here at Littlefield. The oils establish the visual language of the installation and hang beside an interactive New York City map.

Visitors choose a place on the map. Four generated images of nearby fatal crashes emerge, carrying the paintings’ language into the wider city.

Explore the exhibition ↗

Installation mockup: four seed paintings grouped to the left of a tall New York City map, with four projected images to its right. 3,504 Feet from Here is at the lower right of the seed paintings. — Installation mockup · Seed paintings at left, map in the center, projections at right.3,504 Feet from Here is at the lower right of the four seed paintings. Click to enlarge ↗

From the studio

Bringing the moments
together.

The study, first wash, and time-lapse show vehicles and fire finding their places on the canvas. As color and marks accumulate, the impact and the flames that followed it come into one painted present. The studio sequence lets you see that compression happen.[3]

Studio time-lapse · 0:37 · Silent

Arturo’s ink and wash composition study, with compressed black vehicles and red and orange fire marks. — Hand study · Vehicles and fire

Arturo’s first oil wash: pale vehicle contours, a black central mass, and thin burnt orange marks. — First oil wash

Collect the original