Final painted barrier

NYCares Volunteers paint the barrier

Stencils with movable joints

Barrier made of (10) 20′ long modules

Stencils laser cut out of oil board with rotating brass pin joints

200′ of barrier painted in 4 hours

NYCares volunteers painted barrier number 10

Final painted barrier images

My design for “Singing in the Rain” was commissioned by the NYC DOT as part of the Urban Art program to Beautify Barriers throughout the city. The site is located just South of the theater district and Times Square at 36th St and 9th Ave in Manhattan, and references musicals – especially one in particular – as well as motion, animation and street rhythm. The piece will be up for 1 year and made use of a series of movable stencils of figures with articulated joints to allow for variation in the 200′ barrier length. 20 awesome volunteers of all ages participating in the NYC Cares program (many who had never picked up a paintbrush before) were able to arrange the stencils and finish painting the design in 4 hours based off of a series of detailed instruction sheets.

These were components of the Shape Studio I took at UT with critics Chris Risher and Mark Vaughn. The paintings began as expressive gestures that evolved to rigorously reflect a series of imposed limits. What began as logo-centric forms took on qualities including the use of void spaces as well as  a depth and primacy of smaller pieces within an overall composition.

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