Carle Place

Aviary

Gail Boyajian
Artwork in laminated glass by Gail Boyajian showing colorful glass panels with planes and birds.
"Aviary" (2020) © Gail Boyajian, LIRR Carle Place Station. Photo: Jason Mandella

About the project

Gail Boyajian’s artwork "Aviary" explores themes of flight, in part paying homage to the nearby Cradle of Aviation Museum, Grumman headquarters, and airports. "Aviary" features various birds native to the Carle Place area of Long Island and its green spaces that support their habitats, as well as some extinct ones like the Passenger Pigeon and the Carolina Parakeet that flourished at the time of early attempts at human flight. 

The artwork is made up of 42 hand-painted, laminated glass panels that were fabricated by Glasmalerei Peters Studio. It features depictions of aircraft made by Grumman, such as the Apollo Command and Service module and the F-14 jet. There are various helicopters and passenger planes, as well as images of historical flying contraptions, including balloons, blimps and bicycle powered kites, indicating humankind’s wish to emulate the flight of birds throughout time. Frogs and marshland habitats appear in several panels as a nod to the history of the community and its original name, Frog Hollow. The composition, based on Boyajian’s original hand- painted and digital artwork, is continuous across the elevator towers, with the glow of a sunset and a high moon suggesting the passing of the day through the shifting colors, creating a scene to be experienced from many points of view over time. 

About the artist

Gail C. Boyajian worked as an architect before turning to painting in the 1990s. Her paintings assemble buildings, people, and animals from different times and places into imaginary landscapes. She is inspired by imagery from the painters of the European Renaissance, 19th-century American Luminists, and other artists who work in a narrative style. Her work reflects her love of and concern for the natural world. Boyajian has taught architecture at MIT and Philips Academy in Andover, Massachusetts.  She has received numerous grants and awards for her work and has exhibited in galleries nationally and internationally. It is included in various museum collections such as the New Britain Museum of American Art in Connecticut, and the Addison Museum of American Art in Massachusetts. She lives and works in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and Vermont.