Voyage
Times Square Arts brought Beau Stanton’s multi-channel animation Voyage to Times Square’s electronic billboards from 11:57 p.m. to midnight every night in July, 2016. This project was a part of Midnight Moment, a monthly presentation by The Times Square Advertising Coalition (TSAC) and Times Square Arts.
Influenced by imagery from Victorian patterns, letterpress printing, archetypal symbols, and apocalyptic themes, artist Beau Stanton – who also produced a massive commissioned mural for Dubai Walls – is known for his deeply metaphorical oil paintings that fuse these elements with modern environmental realities. Translating oil to animation, Stanton preserved his antiquated language with a style that emulates early moving images, pulling inspiration from the zoetrope and the Lumiere brothers’ cinematograph.
In Voyage, a multi-channel animated narrative, Stanton’s detailed oils came to life to follow the journey of a ship through a series of surreal events and environments. From the first person perspective, the viewer was taken on an adventure deep under the sea, where they encountered mythical beasts, haunting shipwrecks, the ruins of a lost civilization, and the great leviathan. With a whimsical and somewhat Victorian feel, Voyage combined ancient maritime legends, man’s eternal struggle with nature, and current environmental concerns with our everlasting thirst for discovery.
On July 6, New Yorkers were invited to join Beau Stanton and curator Lori Zimmer to view the July Midnight Moment, Voyage.