The excitement in Times Square got a little brighter at an unusual time of day thanks to Visual Arts Professor Tricia McLaughlin. Her most recent 3D animation work, Life Forms, is currently featured as the Times Square Arts’ Midnight Moment, playing each night at 11:57 p.m. for the month of April.
According to the physical and digital media artist, Life Forms represents the “bizarre world of ‘phantasmachina,’ creatures that exist at the intersection of the human and nonhuman.” McLaughlin’s animation commands the jumbo screens of Times Square for the first three minutes before midnight each evening during the exhibit.
“The cartoon-like creatures and bright happyland colors deceptively betray the complexity of my explorations that encourage viewers to think and experience art beyond its traditional boundaries,” said McLaughlin. “I strive to anthropomorphize geometry, imbuing structures and creatures with emotions and a sense of social responsibility.”
In addition to Life Forms in Times Square, McLaughlin has two other exhibitions exploring and revealing the phantasmachina animations. Presented by En Foco, in collaboration with WallWorks Gallery in Bronx, NY, the drawings, paintings, and renditions of the creatures in the 3D Phantasmachina animation will be on display through April 30. Through the TFLR Contemporary, McLaughlin’s “Out of the Abyss” will be available online revealing the “more belligerent phantasmachina creatures” for the remainder of April.
Mclaughlin’s artwork and animations have been internationally exhibited at museums and galleries, such as Palais de Tokyo, Stedelijk Museum; ARCO, Madrid, Spain; Art 42 Basel, Swiss Architecture Museum (SAM); International Incheon Women Artists' Biennale; Delaware Center for the Contemporary Arts; MediaNoche New Media Gallery, NY; and the Bronx Museum. Public art projects include her 3D animation “Virginia Beach Aquatecture,” commissioned for the Virginia Beach Conference Center, Virginia.