Chelsea Day School / Artist
: Kenji Hirata
Amid
an array of architectural diversity a six-story schoolhouse sits in
KOREANTOWN. Chelsea Day School is a
nursery/kindergarten for children ages 2 through 5. It was founded in 1981 by
its current director, Jean Rosenberg.
LIFT found this to be a most appropriate context for the mural
application. “I create my work
from an open mind, like we would have when we were children and could only
imagine a positive dreamy direction for the future with clear vision.” Kenji Hirata.
Kenji’s
work spoke to me and its ability to reach a wide audance. His work embodies a language of icons
and symbols with rounded and curvilinear shapes that speak to active motion,
like to caress, the meaning of the hand touching something you really
love. For a school doing just that
with the children it embraces, LIFT’s mission along with Hirata’s dreamy world
allow us all not to ignore the child in us all.