Look 70 feet up and 29 feet across—Edie Beaucage’s site-specific public art project is boldly suspended on the façade of the Harbor Park Garage located adjacent to the inner harbor of Baltimore. For the inaugural project of what will be an annual rotating exhibition space, Los Angeles-based painter Beaucage draws from her world of characters that populate non-linear narratives and fantastical spaces as they move through acts of work, passion, romance, and leisure. This vinyl translation of one of Beaucage’s paintings presents light and friendly characters who are casual and good-looking beacons of camaraderie and openness—a gigantic invitation for the free-spirited citizens of Baltimore: LET’S HANG OUT AND CHILL TOGETHER!

Created with large expressive brushstrokes, the figures are attired in bright yellow and magenta, stylish hoodies, pants, and boots—Beaucage’s characters function as shorthand for a range of philosophical concepts that undergird the artist’s production strategies. Drawing inspiration from Martin Heidegger's "being with,” Jacques Derrida’s “presence,” and Edward Titchener’s "empathy,” Beaucage creates congenial and approachable characters who stand alone and also interact with each other. Beaucage borrows from psychologist Jonathan Haidt’s notion of humans as "ultra-social" beings able to live in very large cooperative groups as they individually struggle with the ways they are perceived by each other. 

The Harbor Park Garage project reflects Beaucage’s recurring interest for social connections in active city crowds. These new characters are musicians, DJs, dancers—some are even related to previous personalities from Beaucage’s past bodies of work.