Elliott Kaufman Holland Tunnel Tree Wall #1

Elliott Kaufman’s Holland Tunnel Tree Wall #1 is part of the Port Authority’s Holland Tunnel Beautification project, which also involves the placement of banners on the New Jersey side, and the landscaping of the New Jersey and New York approaches.

Kaufman (b. 1946) took his design for the 35’ x 45’ photomural, installed on a privately owned building facing the exit, from a photograph of a tree against a wall. The design is painted in shades of brown, green, and yellow in sign-painter’s paint.

Kaufman says his work “derives its excitement not only from its translation from photographic image to painting, but more essentially from the transference of one wall surface onto another, and an extreme scale switch that magnifies the play of light on a young tree sapling against a highly textured wall surface that is also an illusion.”