Art in the Park

Free admission, open daily during park hours (dawn to dusk)

 

“GUIDING LIGHT”

By Eat Off Art (Artists: Edreys and Alexa Wajed)

The latest mural added to the Artpark campus, was made possible with the kind and bold support of the Grigg Lewis Foundation and Parks and Trails NY. The title, “Guiding Light” is directly correlated to and extracted from an original haiku, written by artist Edreys Wajed. The lettering sprawls across the cement wall, weaving into the undulating, colorful abstract formations, reading:

A life without art
The world darkens around us
It’s a guiding light

The field trip and camp kids get the fortunate opportunity to be exposed to various forms of the arts, painting, music and poetry being only three of them, specifically relevant to this mural. The poem/haiku intends to bring awareness to the importance of the arts, its significance to socio-emotional wellness for youth and adults alike. Particularly, in recognizing the social, educational and corporate turmoil currently effecting the quality of live of millions, Western New York included, it was important to incorporate strong messaging of hope and duty by and on behalf of the arts communities.

The layer beneath the poem is an abstract representation of music, a visual interpretation of sound. Music and musical performance is and has been a long time staple of the Artpark campus and ethos, given its history with successful concert series. Considering such, the project naturally aligned with the vision and practice of the artist, as music is generally always at the heart of his work. 

The marks and shapes that flood the space on the wall, each represent the notation of individual instruments and sounds from a song. Upon listening to a selected song, Edreys identifies each instrument playing, assigns a color to it and translates its tone and notation into a matching movement of interpreted sound. The colors and shapes on the mural as it stands, is only a segment of a full painting, a sample of sorts, an intriguing portion of the original work on canvas, magnified and portrayed as a mural. The song which inspired the painting is entitled “Fall In Love,” by Slum Village, from Detroit, which as a sister-city, a rustbelt sibling, is experiencing a flouring movement in the arts scene.
The approach to the design and execution of the mural, mirrors the playful and curious wit of the students who frequent the arts programs, allowing room for fun, being creative and forgiving with handmade error, preserving memory through creating an artifact or “art of facts.” Edreys was joined by his wife, also a practicing artist, Alexa Wajed, (Co-Founder of Eat Off Art) hand painting with care and joy, a rare partnership and occasion when considering art productions. 

Eat Off Art, a family-owned business, which prioritizes art a tool for healing and a mechanism for entrepreneurship, does so through mentorship, free art classes and workshops, along with a running list of successful community engagements throughout Western New York. It was founded by artists Edreys and Alexa Wajed of Buffalo, NY, who have art practices unique to themselves, yet collaboratively are dynamic duo, focused on inspiring the youth and building more empathetic communities.

As it stands, the mural is on full display, overlooking the striped parking lot, while framed by the natural trees, brush and indigenous foliage, reminding one and all about the power and importance of preserving the arts, grooming the next generation of emerging artists.

MURMURATION

Murmuration is a structure that creates a place for gathering in the landscape. Echoing a flock of birds midair, the installation appears to continually shift its shape as visitors catch glimpses across the rolling Artpark topography. Murmuration is a gifted installation from the SO-IL studio and was recently transferred from its original location at the High Museum in Atlanta to its new home at Artpark. This is the largest installation on display at Artpark since Omega in 1980. The work was designed by Florian Idenburg, Ted Baab, Andrew Gibbs, and Ray Rui Wu.

 

NIAGARA 1979 BY GENE DAVIS RE-INSTALLATION 

In the summer of 1979, artist Gene Davis created this artwork entitled "Niagara 1979," made up of 60, two-foot wide by 364-foot long lines rolled in nine different colors. The artwork of over 43,000 square feet was the world’s largest painting and thousands came out to experience it. In 2017 Artpark launched a Kickstarter campaign that hailed the support of over 145 community backers to re-install the painting.

 

EMERALD GROVE BY JESSE WALP

Artpark and local artist Jesse Walp teamed up to present "Emerald Grove," a whimsical interactive art installation geared towards children and nature lovers. The installation consists of many different elements designed to represent topographic features and history of the Artpark grounds. Interactive elements include bridges, windmills, sculptural seating, an earth mound, a sundial, and large pod-like huts which stand at 15ft tall. Bird Houses for Eastern Bluebirds, the State Bird of New York, were installed in 2024. The installation is located in the picnic grove next to Scott Burton's "A Picnic Table and Four Benches" (1983) concrete installation in between the Lower Park Information Center and the Artpark Gallery.

 

ARTPARK PERCUSSION GARDEN 

 

A PICNIC TABLE AND FOUR BENCHES, BY SCOTT BURTON (1979)

American sculptor Scott Burton's (1939-1989) series of tables and chairs challenges the distinction between furniture and sculpture, marrying function with aesthetics in the tradition of Russian Constructivism, De Stijl, and the Bauhaus. Artpark is proud to house his 1979 concrete installation, A Picnic Table and Four Benches, located between the Lower Park Information Center and the Artpark Gallery.  It's the perfect place to contemplate whether form really does follow function!

Photo by Joshua Maloni

 

 

THE NATIVE AMERICAN PEACE GARDEN

As part of the 2020 season's adapted festival program, Artpark unveiled the Native American Peace Garden: A reflection space for healing, celebrating and tranquility. The concept and initial design of the garden was the brainchild of Michele-Elise Burnett of Kakekalanicks Consultancy and brought to life by a Native team from the Tuscarora reservation made up of Bryan Printup, who finalized the design, and Rene Rickard, Vince Schiffert and Violet Printup. More info

Photo by Jordan Oscar

 

URHA’NA’NI HE’KYE YEHĘWÁHKWA’THA

(Picking Up Our Canoes at the Edge of the Woods)

Created by artist Caroline Doherty, Kanien'kehá:ka artist and scholar-activist Jodi Lynn Maracle, and Tuscarora linguist and activist Montgomery C. Hill, this steel tablet consists of text in Skaru:re, the language of the Tuscarora people, with English footnotes. The text excerpts the Kanęherathęhčreh, or Thanksgiving Address, which gives thanks to and acknowledges the natural world. The piece was commissioned in spring of 2018 by Artpark and the New York State Parks and permanently installed in June 2018.

 

 

 

BOWER BY ELLEN DRISCOLL AND JOYCE HWANG,
CURATED BY CITY AS A LIVING LABORATORY/MARY MISS

**(UNDER RESTORATION)

Bower is a multi-media installation joining glass with a series of interrelated architectural structures meant to promote awareness and interest in local bird species. An educational program on the site of the installation has been curated by the Buffalo Audubon Society. 

Bower is an arrangement of architectural fragments which host birdhouses and pictorial glass windows evoking the vernacular architecture of the Lewiston area with embedded birdhouses (or nesting boxes) designed to accommodate a variety of local bird species - including chickadees, wrens, flycatchers, nuthatches, bluebirds, and purple martins. They are attached to the structure, in an arrangement that have taken into account environmental factors which affect bird nesting and habitability.

The window images are created from drawings that depict local species of birds that have come to prefer human-made structures to nest in. Some, like the purple martin, make an annual journey of 3000 miles from North America to Latin America and back again. The images in the windows are overlaid with a grid of dots, a pattern which prevents birds from colliding with the pane of glass.

The Bower project has been made possible by generous gifts from the Garman Family Foundation and Pamela & Joseph Priest.

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ART IN THE PARK INSTALLATIONS

Chuck Tingley - "The Ascent"

Location: Lower Park (Use 4th Street entrance). Concrete wall outside of Art Gallery and concrete benches in Theater Terrace nearest the Art Gallery & Box Office

 

Sarah McNutt and Nathanial Hall- "Natural Preservative"

Location:  Artpark Woods at Oak Hill Project Entrance

 

Sue Berkey - "The Red Coyote"

Location: Artpark Woods

 

Karen Sirgey - "Pods" 

Location: Artpark Woods  

 

 

 

For more information, please contact Artpark Director of Education and Interpretation Tanis Winslow at [email protected]