Talk about exposure! Artist Molly Dilworth has just won the competition to paint Times Square — that is, the five pedestrian plazas created as a test about a year ago and now made permanent by the Bloomberg administration. 150 artists entered, according to WNYC, the public radio station.
Dilworth, whose entry is called “Cool Water, Hot Island” and is based on NASA-heat maps of Manhattan (rendering, looking north from 43rd St. is at right), also won $15,000.
Dilworth doesn’t seem to have a high profile; her website has but one image.
But in February, the New York Daily News wrote about her attempt to paint NYC rooftops with her abstract images, in hopes that they would be seen by satellites and captured by Google Earth. She’d done three buildings at the time, including the Hendershot Gallery’s W. 27th St. property.
The News quoted her as saying: “I choose the brightest colors that can be seen from outer space, basically.” She buys leftover house paint on Craig’s List or from other organizations to keep costs low, and she uses a roller. Here’s a link to the News story.
UPDATE, 5/22: You can see Dilworth’s work as part of the upcoming Atlantic Avenue Art Walk — and perhaps equally interesting, Dilworth is making the piece with students at the Brooklyn High School of the Arts, where she has teamed up with SPARK, a drug prevention program. Read more about that here.
Photo Credit: Courtesy of the New York City Department of Transportation (top); Hendershot Gallery (bottom)