Belmont Boys & Girls Club - Mural Project
A Fordham/Community Mural in the Bronx!
by artist Lovie Pignata
Earth Day, 2021, Fordham student, faculty and staff will join Fordham Bronx Advocates and community members to paint a mural project. Earth Day Mural on the wall of the Belmont Boys and Girls Club, designed by Lovie Pignata, a great Bronx artist and community activist.
About Lovie Pignata:
Lovie is currently in a residency program on Governors Island, provided by the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council. While there, she is creating botanical sculptures made with various safety mirrors that will be placed in community gardens. The reflective ‘flowers’ can be used to redirect light for better growing and for dynamic social distant selfies and photographs.
In 2019, Lovie completed a large commissioned mural for Community Board 11, transforming Amtrak walls into colorful designs of local alewife fish and tree roots in the Van Nest neighborhood of the Bronx.
In 2018, Lovie received a grant through the Bronx River Alliance, NYC Parks Department, and the Centers for Disease Control to install activity inspiring artwork in Concrete Plant Park. Her work Bronx River Native is based on the area's original human inhabitants, the Mohegan Indians, who used a turtle design to represent their people. The work consists of three ground formations, created using poured concrete. The 16” diameter hexagon pavers are painted in bright colors with symbols of different indigenous people and cultures, both past and present. Two formations replicate a turtle surfacing the water and the third tile formation is a hopscotch board.
Lovie was one of ten recipients of the 2017 Uniqlo Parks Expression grant, a new partnership with the New York City Parks
by artist Lovie Pignata
Department funding ten outdoor sculptures in ten different parks. Lovie's project Daylighting included both a pavement mural component and retired Bronx River canoes repurposed as seating/stages/table tops/planters. The two canoes were installed in the paved park and the riversides were painted each season. Collaborations with the project included more than twenty-five free events with local environmental groups, health related organizations, teenage volunteers, and local businesses.
Additionally, in 2017, an outdoor historical mural was completed in the Morris Park neighborhood replicating old photographs with spray paint. The work was commissioned by the East Bronx History Forum. Also in 2017, Lovie was the BxArtsFactory's first Virtual Artist in Residence, leading a series of workshops teaching parents activities that they could take home and share with their children.
Lovie studied undergraduate fine art, majoring in sculpture, at Pratt Institute. She has resided in the Bronx since 2001.