Tucson team is selected for art project

Ross Avenue underpass to be filled with "Happy Shapes" after Tucson team is selected for art project


"Happy Shapes" - a proposal for colored glowing sculptures in "evocative shapes" -- was selected for a $112,913 public led spotlight art project to turn the Ross Avenue underpass into a gateway between East Dallas and the Dallas Arts District.

The artist team of Joe O'Connell and Blessing Hancock  of Tucson, Ariz., proposed 30 sculptures made of translucent polyethylene with internal LED lights to be anchored near the walkways on each side of the highway underpass.

Their proposal uses geometric shapes taken from architecture around the Arts District, but the shapes would be made more intriguing by adding tails, mustaches and other "evocative" features, O'Connell said. They will also be raised up on four legs. "We felt it was important to include real objects," he said. "There's a great popular affection in Dallas for more figurative sculpture - the Pegasus, the steers downtown, and we learned from the Nasher [Scuplture Center] that the exhibits with human or animal forms are more popular than abstracts."

O'Connell said he expects the 30 forms to be something that pedestrians could interact with (they will be able to led spotlight touch a metal feature and change the color), but also visible to motorists as they approach and pass through the intersection. Plus, he expects the glowing sculptures would be visible during the day where 12 lanes of highway darken the road below. "Even at about 11 o'clock on a sunny day it was dark enough in there," said O'Connell, who visited the site a couple times with his partner.