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The program is supported with funding from the National Endowment for the Arts ‘Our Town” competitive grant program and matched by the City of Norwalk.
The project, titled “Gateway to Norwalk” will take a year to complete.
Zhao is a native of China but has lived in New York City for more than 30 years. He has created similar works throughout the country and abroad. He works with language in an abstract manner and will visit Norwalk over the next several months to conduct informal gatherings with a wide range of community groups, gathering source materials in the many languages spoken in the local area - English, Spanish, Greek, Portuguese, Russian, Dutch, Hungarian, Chinese, Pashto, Korean, Italian, Polish, and Haitian – to name just a few.
In this way the final work, which will stretch from the Route 7 connector overpass to the I-95 overpass along the retaining wall of West Avenue, will be a reflection of the many cultural communities that make up the city of Norwalk.
In appearance the twisted metal elements resemble a tangle of vines and roots, but are words and phrases in multiple languages, distorted, overlaid and intertwined.
“Vertically, the designed artwork integrates the trees and foliage from the top of the wall, while horizontally it connects two parts of the town; SoNo and Downtown Norwalk," Zhao said. "I want to use the image of roots as a symbol of linkage among the many different cultures of the city. The written elements function as a hidden detail about past and future, a kind of code detailing the tapestry of the community.”
The new work is based on a similar sculptural project that Zhao created for the University Health and Counseling Center in Eugene, Ore.
The final work will be created on site in Norwalk with the assistance of local artists and students. The artwork will include embedded LED light tape, sensory color controlled by the movement of the passing cars at night.
Zhao was chosen from a field of 144 entries from across the U.S. to create this new public art work for the City of Norwalk.
Zhao is also a painter and maintains a studio in New York City. He holds a Master of Fine Arts degree from the School of Visual Arts in New York City and a Bachelor of Arts from Shanghai Teachers' College in Shanghai, China. Since 1996, he has been on the faculty in the Fine Arts Department at the Fashion Institute of Technology - State University of New York.
Examples of his current and previous work can be seen on his web site at www.zhaosuikang.com/.
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