Remember Summer and Can’t Wait for Spring, Reflections and Hieroglyphs at The Point.

Series of Installations with Hand Painted Giant Hands in Central Park, 2021, created by artist Mirena Rhee without the endorsement of the park.

In response to the Lockdowns, in the Spring of 2021, I created a series of Giant Hands installations in Central Park for the joy and entertainment of everyone.

A response to the incredible colors of the park which are the colors of the Old Masters, by the Oldest and Greatest Art Master - Nature.

Inspired by and in honor of my friends who answered my call for support in December.

These series are actually a second or third round of installations in the park, I have been stalking places for years sketching in my mind all kinds of imaginary abominations short of painting the entire park bright red, but all is possible in Video Games. They can hardly be distinguished from reality these days. As a Video Game Artist at heart I am not afraid of my imagination.

Here I had to work with the Park Conservancy and the wind. By “working” I meant folding when I am threatened with the cops and arguing my case if I can, politely.

I have determined my next work which is going to be called Summer, Summer - to be more permanent and run though the proper channels first. One of the things people with nothing to lose have is nothing to lose.

To see the Giant Hands by themselves - scroll to the bottom of the page.

My first write up with the intent to do the installations from January 12, 2021. I initially intended the first installations to be in February but realized that it was too cold, too wet, and the days too short to succeed.

“As the title of my post says I'm planning on installations in honor and to celebrate my friends who answered my call for support in December.

A few days ago I went to Central Park and it was so incredibly beautiful during the magic hour which I photographed rocks and places with my crappy phone, but I'm planning to return to photograph with my regular camera.

I have this incredible fascination with Central Park, rocks and trees, that almost borders on infatuation.. and I am gonna act on it.

The colors are so fantastic and so different from the summer and fall, beautiful blues and Grays and earthen colors. I'm totally infatuated with Central Park at this point. And before that goes away I'm going to set up a series of installations which will celebrate the muted colors of the park in the bright colors of paint.

Remember Summer possible locations below and tiny Installation sketch.

I am not gonna pretend, I work in the tradition of Christo Javacheff but my work is quick, fast to deploy, without permission, cheaper to make and easy to handle by just one person. It lasts mostly a day and then its gone. That’s the spirit of the 21 century. The speed of light :)”

The Colors of Central Park which inspired me to go ahead

remember summer - can’t wait for spring - tree hugs - minimalist installation in central park inspired by the colors of Central Park which are Old Masters colors this time of the year.

And the fire ladders all over the park which beckoned to me to splash some color here and there. Remember the Fire Ladders? They were so awesome I thought I should give park coloring a shot.

I was stalking some trees which look incredibly honest and beautiful this time of the year. If you see a Rembrandt painting you will see the same colors except for Vermilion, Yellow and Ultramarine which at this time of the year are hidden in the colors of the birds.

The colors and the shapes and of course the Fire Ladder inspired me to make a few minimalist installations which will come back next week just in time for spring. I love working in the park, it is incredibly beautiful but it is also full of culture, which is the mix of street culture of New York city as well as the neighborhood cultures of UES and UWS, the cultures of the performers, the drum circles, the musicians, the bubble guy, the museum going crowd, the Boathouse crowd, the joggers and the bikers and the boarders, and the skaters.

As for myself - if Christo, Marina Abramovich, Leonardo and Dali made a Tetrahedron - I'd sit in the middle.

I love trees, the trees in Central Park are really beautiful colors of the bark. My grandpa who was in forestry used to tell me to hug a tree when I was sick to get better.

I made a bunch of drawings and sketches and my first ideas about the installations revolved around trees and Tree Hugs.

Been contemplating Tree Cozies, painted rocks, making blankets for the rocks from canvas etc - of course not painting the objects themselves but making canvas coats.

I have a bunch of leftovers canvas from previous installations which sewn together can make a sizeable piece that is not too heavy. I am still working on it in my head as I want to avoid the “Quilt” association as the plague.

Remember Summer Installations Drawings and Sketches

You can see in these drawings my ideas for the Tree Hugs and the Rock wraps or blankets I have been thinking of - these drawings actually refer to new canvas pieces being made as paper doesn’t work, it is not sturdy, it is very fragile in wind. The paper hands are just not made to work in this scale or for this purpose. But I did go ahead with the paper hands anyway as I had a hunch it will work in some ways.

That’s why I first made the Tree Hugs installations , and plan to hand paint some Tree Cozies in the future, as well as to hand paint a Rock!

Tree Hugs was actually my first attempt with the installations. I encountered a lot of wind. You know wind is crazy and now I understand why Christo wanted to wrap things. And then people don’t really want things wrapped around their trees which I understand.

The Hands didn’t scale but Color did.

I had wrapped hands conspicuously around trees but the park people asked me to take it down so I did it around the trees, which they somehow allowed. Which I believe will work eventually in canvas. I felt I can’t fight people over tree hugs.

Also made a few hugs inconspicuously in more hidden areas in the park.

Rest assured eventually towards the evening gale force winds tore the tree hugs to pieces and I had to chase hands around the lawns. Hey, I’d do that every day without pay because I somehow love it. I had a ball even with the most of it failing miserably at staying at arrangement. The hands did whatever they wanted so for the Hieroglyphs I did let them do exactly that.

Sometimes you have to let the work do the work and just help it a little.

Remember Summer - First Try!

I wanted to work with the bodies of water and reflections so I made the first exploration of that theme on this bridge which I had worked with before in 2018 but only with 3 hands and now I was ready for more.

You know how criminals always come back for more!

I made many attempts to work with the paper hands and encountered a lot of resistance from the Park people and Nature itself. It’s okay, I can work with that.

Remember Summer

Remember Summer spontaneously turned into Reflections. I learned from the small bridge installation that I can double the effect in one go and this is why I sought larger body of water. It’s not cheating if it works.

I had to set it up several times in succession to find an arrangement that worked - went out there, came back and rearranged so the reflections can be read from across the lake and they actually worked. Because the paper hands are flat you know. Flags would have worked much better.

Reflections - Hieroglyphs at The Point

Reflections - I applied what I had previously learned and worked with the element of wind and water, this time harmoniously.

Wind is always an issue, verticality works, flat structures don’t work. The wind will blow so I decided to let the hands just blow in the wind and also emphasize the third dimension and not lay them down flat.

This installation - Reflections - Hieroglyphs at The Point - is of course random on the very surface, the hands are randomly placed but a result of a long time of observation and working on ideas about the space in Central Park and especially the forms, the shapes of the trees, the colors of Earth and bark.

The Old Masters colors of the park ambushed with the sharp burst of Color in Acrylic Paint. It’s a bit chemical burst, but as natural as the wavelengths of light are natural.

Just like randomness in the shapes of the trees and branches is only on the surface but follows an inner logic of growth and reach up to ultraviolet light, so is my installation a natural progression of many years of study as well as spontaneous work with the environment to create an ephemeral work, a temporary pigment, a visual language for one afternoon. I call it an ephemeral sign language.

Hieroglyphs made out of painted hands.

Squiggles, and Graffiti. Reflected in the water.

They say Light
doesn’t travel
but ripples,
and doubles the World.
It makes us all,
humans and trees,
tremble a little.

Reflections

This installations consisted of all 36 Hands and Red Cloth on and around the rustic bridge.

This one just worked because I learned. Why it worked great:

The hands really worked in the muted color environment of the park. The shapes didn’t scale previously so they didn’t read as hands until this more intimate enviroenment with the rustic bridge and the pond, kind of Japanese feel to it. The color scaled and worked really well and all tied together across the pond. Even up close, the bridge itself being wrapped with colorful hands worked well and I promise the bright colors didn’t chase the wildlife at all, and the birds didn’t fly away - it was confirmed by birders themselves ( people who came with binoculars to watch birds ). The red cloth worked as well as it covered more ground and could be seen from really far as bight red spot in the woods so people came to check it out.

Reflections installation all worked, I guess I learned.

But it was because I decided to:

1. Repaint the hands

2. Scale properly

3. Reflect vertically

I added red cloth because I figured from my previous try on the bridge that I really liked a long finger-like extension to reach out from the bridge like a rope around the pond.

The color scheme of the newly repainted hands in orange and yellow and the Red Cloth are homage to Christo and Jeanne-Claude. A direct reference which was immediately recognized by the spectators.

The series of installations were made with these Giant Hands

The hands really worked in the muted color environment of the park. The shapes didn’t scale so they didn’t read as hands until the last installation, but the color scaled and worked really well. I made the decision to repaint them and although they worked and read previously, I wanted to break away from their honest patina and put effort into improving them. Yellow and Orange always works which I think was what I learned from Christo - I had a lot of Christo comments from people which was a huge compliment of course, I didn’t expressly intend it as such and didn’t necessarily want to copy paste ideas with direct reference - but who works in isolation and I am not a Robinson Crusoe and stand in a great tradition on the shoulders of giants who figured all the hard stuff before me.

The hands were born in Beacon, New York in 2018. They have the patina and stamina of cave paintings. I decided to repaint them in early April so they acquired a brand new patina.

This Meta expose and history and explanation is to give you an idea of the thought process and the diversity of challenges and ideas and also a timeline and continuity in the work.