Laura Owens, I 🍕 NY
Artist Laura Owens‘s I 🍕 NY is a two-level tiled mosaic mural on the airport’s largest interior wall. The mural depicts clouds amid a melange of New York City sites, such as (the tip of) the Chrysler Building, halal carts, and “I love New York” shirts. Seagulls fly above a sign for Grand Central-42nd Street, while a nearby portion of the wall reveals the winding Coney Island Cyclone and the Wonder Wheel poking out behind a cloud. The work includes symbols of New York’s transit network, as well as some historical and artistic nods, such as the zodiac signs from the roof of Grand Central Terminal.
According to LaGuardia’s website, “The mosaic’s dynamic composition changes with the viewer’s point of view, as images recognizable from afar become gridded abstractions when seen up close, dissolving into impressionistic colors and out-of-focus glimpses of our imagined city.” Owens, who lives and works in Los Angeles, has recently had solo exhibitions at The Cleveland Museum of Art and the Fondation Vincent van Gogh in Arles, in addition to a 2017 exhibition at The Whitney Museum. She is best known for her large-scale paintings that draw from history.