Visual Arts

After years of painting works on canvas, this project was something exciting and different for me. It was an opportunity to create twenty-one paintings in a unique way for a new audience, the tenants of the Royce Residences, a large affordable housing complex located in downtown Syracuse, NY. The Royce Residences underwent a $20 million renovation in 2016-2017, under new ownership by the Mulholland Group, led by developer Royce Mulholland. Now that all the work has been installed and put to good use, I look back on this project as a giant printmaking edition conceived in collaboration with artist-turned-curator Marius Muresanu (in charge of the Public Art program for the property), Ben Diep, master printer and digital tech whiz, and Tim Wirtz of Graphic Image Flooring, the Minnesota company that did the beautiful vinyl flooring printing.

Ben and I spent three plus weeks in the spring of 2016, sitting in front of his large computer screens, and creating digital files inspired from high-resolution photographs of fourteen original recent paintings of mine. All of the twenty-one files that emerged are original designs, not copies of the paintings—and seven of the digital files were created from scratch, using bits and pieces from the source paintings. About four months later the paintings, printed on vinyl flooring, each measuring 10’ x 13’, were installed in the elevator landings at the 550 South Clinton Street site. It is my hope that the tenants of the Royce Towers will enjoy these special works of art.

William Conlon, 2018