Welcome to the new Terminal A at Newark Liberty International Airport
Promoting the Arts & Increasing Participation Statewide
Led by the New Jersey State Council on the Arts (Arts Council) and comprised of members of the statewide arts community, an effort to discover the illustrious works of New Jersey artists highlighting the broad spectrum of talent, opportunity and cultures that make our state so vibrant yielded this collection of moving, magnificent pieces from some of New Jersey's most inspiring artists.
Current Art Collections
Past Works
Approach, 2022
Powder-coated aluminum and stainless steel
Commissioned by the Port Authority of New York & New Jersey and Munich Airport NJ, in partnership with Public Art Fund
To create Approach, Karyn Olivier embarked on an extensive photographic survey of Newark, Elizabeth, and the surrounding region. She captured the extraordinary tapestry of New Jersey’s iconic skylines, robust infrastructure and natural beauty. Slices of land and sky are suspended in two helix-like structures: one that depicts daytime and the other, night. Each ring is double-sided, and presents two distinct views: when looking up, a bird’s eye view; and when looking down from above, a skyward view. This inversion echoes the temporary disorientation that travel often causes as we transit multiple time zones to arrive in different places with new perceptions. As passengers approach the sculptures, the rings begin to align concentrically, revealing a rich topographical mosaic. The artwork may even appear to move, compressing or expanding as our view shifts. The result is a dynamic study of both landscape and time, two elements that define our unique experience of place.
KARYN OLIVIER
(b. 1968, Port of Spain, Trinidad & Tobago) Lives and works in Philadelphia, PA
Karyn Olivier considers history, displacement, migration, and visibility/invisibility through conceptual sculptures made of industrial materials and found objects. In these sculptures, conventional figuration is absent, but the vestiges of bodies—including clothing, shoes, and architectural spaces or objects where human interaction is implied—are central. With this transposal of the human subject, Olivier collapses multiple histories, memories, and times, creating singular material snapshots of larger processes of movement and change.
An expression of
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Between the Future Past
Acrylic paint and inkjet print on fabric mounted to aluminum panel
Commissioned by the Port Authority of New York & New Jersey and Munich Airport NJ, in partnership with Public Art Fund
Between the Future Past celebrates the abundant diversity of Newark, New Jersey, and the New York metropolitan area. Layqa Nuna Yawar has reimagined the format of a historical mural to reflect an ongoing cycle of time that embraces past, present, and future. Drawing on his indigenous heritage and Kichwa language, he sees the mural as “a looped narrative that can be read from right to left and left to right.” The artwork features native flora and fauna, emphasizing nature as a symbol for growth. It is populated by a wide range of individuals across time, culture, race, and gender, highlighting narratives of personal accomplishment and perseverance that have often been overlooked. People brought by successive waves of global migration, including those from Black, Brown, Asian, and Middle Eastern backgrounds, as well as Indigenous people, are represented in this expansive vision. From airport workers to poets to LGBTQ+ heroes, Layqa Nuna Yawar’s mural rethinks who should be celebrated publicly, proposed that all individuals are equally remarkable in their humanity.
LAYQA NUNA YAWAR
(b. 1984, Cuenca, Ecuador) Lives and works in Newark, NJ