By Julie Shapiro
DNAinfo Reporter/Producer
SEAPORT — Naima Rauam can’t stop painting the Fulton Fish Market.
Rauam first set eyes on the market 45 years ago, when she was searching for a topic for an action painting, as part of a class at the Art Students League.
"I fell in love with it," Rauam, 64, recalled last week. "I thought, ‘There’s so much more to this than just one painting.’ I’ve been coming back ever since."
Even when the market moved up to the Bronx in 2005, Rauam kept painting its lower Manhattan incarnation, guided by sketches, photos and memories.
This month, Rauam is bringing those newer artworks together with some of her older ones in an exhibit marking the fifth anniversary of the market’s move.
Rauam hopes the Remembering Fulton Fish Market exhibit, shown in a gallery right beside the former fish stalls, will keep the memory of the market alive in a neighborhood that is changing quickly.
"The city lost a great, unique part of itself," said Rauam, who works from a studio in the Seaport and lives on the Lower East Side.
Over the years, Rauam grew friendly with many of the men who worked at the market, and she still goes up to the Bronx to visit them.
But artistically, something about the South Street market keeps drawing her back.
"Visually, it’s so intriguing," Rauam said, speaking of the long-shuttered stalls in the present tense. "It’s outdoors, and you have the night city and the night sky and all these little islands of light. You have colorful fish in boxes, wet and glistening. You have workers [moving] actively. Every night there are different fish, different compositions, and the weather is different. It’s endless."
Rauam has exhibited her drawings and watercolors of the market every year since it closed in 2005, and she hopes to continue creating new work to add to each year’s show.
"It’s hard to get it out of my system," she said.
The Remembering Fulton Fish Market Exhibit is open through Nov. 28 at 210 Front St. at Beekman Street, Tuesday to Sunday from noon to 7 p.m.
