Ambitious art project
Colleges start public street art exhibition in Lauderdale
When artist Charlotte Maloney served as a caregiver to her ill husband, she discovered solace and inspiration walking through nature preserves.
“It became a survival technique and gave me the energy I needed to care for my husband,” said Maloney, an adjunct art professor at Florida Atlantic University and Palm Beach State College.
She brought that inspiration when she painted “The Marsh” on the exterior west wall of the Florida Atlantic University-Broward College Higher Education Complex in Fort Lauderdale. She was joined by four other artists — Broward College alumnus Luis A. Gutierrez, BC faculty member Tyler K. Smith, FAU faculty member Henning Haupt and FAU graduate student Naghmeh Goodarzi — for the inaugural phase of the “This is a Canvas” public street art exhibition.
The blank 90-foot-wide wall, on Southeast First Avenue and Las Olas Boulevard, provided the artists an urban canvas, and their creative process was on display.
“It’s about the connection,” said Jonathan Morgan, liaison and adjunct professor in Broward College’s Visual and Performing Arts Department. “… Being able to see how works are created, to hear the artist’s personal view, is one of the most enlightening things the general public can get from this.” Maloney agreed. “I hope that as people go about their day in downtown Fort Lauderdale, they find solace in my work,” said Maloney, whose acrylic painting of a white heron taking flight dominates her 10-by-15-foot section of the wall.
Haupt described his pencil and varnish “Blue and Grey 3-2-1” as “exploring the spatial qualities within drawings, paintings and three-dimensional installations.”
“I like to invite the audience to share the pleasure of drawing and painting, to dive into form, space and atmosphere, and to decipher the relationship between the elements on the canvas,” he said.
Smith’s “Bombot Fleet,” a rendezvous with science fiction, was created with Home Depot house paint, the bright blue background presenting a foil for the flailing robots.
“As long as you’re getting the right color and the right saturation of color, it works,” Smith said. “You have to be inventive, and you have to make stuff work.”
Gutierrez’s “Paper Airplanes” is designed to evoke playful childhood memories.
“The colors are bright, creating a contrast between the abstract background and the bright white paper, and there is the contrast between the realism of the airplanes and the abstract background,” he said.
Goodarzi’s work, “Silence,” represents her interest in anthropology, women’s issues and social concerns.
“I came from a culture full of contradictions, and women are the most vulnerable part of that society,” said Goodarzi, who grew up in Iran and moved to South Florida in 2013. “… My intention is to navigate the audience’s attention toward the problems and issues and to make the viewer stop and think about what they are looking at.”
For her piece, she shot 100 photographs, finally choosing the one that spoke to her.
And when a young man asked why she chose such a dark image, she said, “That’s what I want from the world: to remember a woman’s face, looking down, with a dark cover, and who wants to be rid of it.”
The artworks will be added to the new Florida Atlantic University/ Broward College Public Street Art Collection. And this fall, the next cycle of artists will take their turn at the wall.
“That encourages people to go and look because you never know when it is going to vanish next,” Morgan said.