It was easy to fall in love with the works of Stipan Tadić, whether you were a New Yorker or just someone who passed through the city a few times in their life. Because it was the type of painting that was about life; things happening around us, moving, cinematic, comedic, lonely, friendly, observational and personal, but somehow painted at just the right distance away from the action. This isn't the type of work that is fly-on-the-wall, but something more engrained in a place. Familiar but not taken for granted. "In fairness, I've never held a fantasy of New York," the Croatian painter told me last year, and maybe that is why he is able to paint it with such a keen eye. It's not home but he has made it home, and he's not fawning over it but just painting it as it is; a bustling metropolis with millions of souls passing each other by everyday. 

So here it is then: Metropolis: 36 Views of New York, 36 works on view at James Fuentes in NYC that speak about NYC in a way that feels classic and yet fresh. The show sees Tadić mapping the neighborhoods surrounding the D line train from the Bronx to Coney Island, a year-long walking tour of the city that captures both the iconic and often unseen. With his comic book style that is mixed with traditional painting, this is almost like his own video game of navigation, where he becomes a superhero to the city's most common backdrops.

We often, in our wildest imaginations, think of our self as something greater than we are, the star of our own movie, the director of our cinematic journeys throughout a day and night. Tadić allows us into his thought-process of this phenomenon, a film playing out in his mind and for us to follow. It's personal and yet universal, which is exactly what NYC has always been. Millions have taken that train and millions more will continue to. It's not special and yet it's the center of the universe, making it undeniably a place for a spotlight. There is a gravitational pull to NYC, and though maybe it wasn't part of  Tadić's fantasy years ago, it's home for him now, and he is making a movie of his life. —Evan Pricco