Neptune's Garden

2018 Bay Parkway (F / Culver) New York City Transit

Leslie Wayne created "Neptune’s Garden" for the Bay Parkway station, situated along the elevated subway route to Coney Island. In creating the artwork, Wayne considered the public’s shared interests and concerns for the environment and surrounding bodies of water. New Yorkers perennially enjoy the ocean, whether it’s visiting the beaches during the summertime, watching the Coney Island Polar Bear Club take a dip in the winter, fishing, or taking in the view. "Neptune’s Garden" is a tribute to this enjoyment and the ocean’s beauty, as well as a reminder of its fragility.

For the fabrication of this laminated glass artwork, Wayne worked with Derix Glasstudios to incorporate various techniques in creating the colorful coral shapes and hand painting was applied to various layers to create depth within each glass panel. Colorful, organic forms characterize coral in the sea, and the blue and green shapes appear as floating seaweed and ferns. Similar to Wayne’s studio paintings, in which layers of oil paint are built up and then pushed and manipulated into ribbons and crenelated forms, the layers of glass panels create texture and a fantasy-like panorama of the sea floor in all its splendor.