Art at Amtrak

Art at Amtrak, the official public art program of Amtrak, presents diverse, unique and memorable art projects to enhance, invigorate and humanize the travel experience at Amtrak stations. The art program reflects and celebrates each region's creative preeminence by featuring contemporary artists through rotating exhibitions.

The program launched at New York Penn Station in June 2022, has expanded to Moynihan Train Hall in Summer 2023, to Washington Union Station, William H. Gray III 30th Street Station in Fall 2023 and Chicago Union Station in Fall 2024.

Art at Amtrak is curated and produced by Debra Simon Art Consulting.

Amtrak, through its official public art program, Art at Amtrak, is proud to announce its latest series of installations as it expands to the Metropolitan Lounge at Washington Union Station. For the project, three artists, Eirini Linardaki, Tim Doud and Karen Margolis, each designed a unique piece specifically for the space that incorporates aspects of the historic station as well as the local culture and geography of Washington, DC into their work. The art serves as a permanent enhancement to our premium lounge space and will remain a focal point within the Metropolitan Lounge for years to come.

EIRINI LINARDAKI

I see the sky from where I am_ 1, 2 & 3, 2024
Digital Collage

Washington Union Station Metropolitan Lounge

This series of three collages for Union Station in Washington, DC celebrates the vibrancy of our nation’s capital. Using fabrics from the many cultures that call Washington, DC home, the pieces combine architectural elements of the station, such as views of the grand departure hall and the ceiling coffers, with subtle references to the trains themselves. The central piece offers a sweeping view of Union Station’s historic hall, featuring a caryatid (a sculpted female figure that serves as architectural support, typically in place of a column) reimagined as the station's muse. Paying homage to a statue that once stood in the hall in 1908, this figure embodies the station’s spirit and history. Framed by Beaux-Arts design elements, as well as traditional and contemporary fabrics, it transforms the space into a dreamy tapestry of cultures. The two adjacent collages depict a centennial tree, symbolizing the nation's unity and growth, and a patterned landscape from an Amtrak journey along the East Coast, blending history, travel and culture into a vivid narrative of diversity.

TIM DOUD

A Great Public Walk, 2024
Acrylic on wood panels

Washington Union Station Metropolitan Lounge

When Pierre Charles L’Enfant designed “The Federal City” of Washington, DC he took an egalitarian approach. The mall was designed around the idea that every citizen is equally important. A Great Public Walk reflects Union Station’s role as a local, regional, national and international hub. The painted collage features a patchwork of clothing and textiles Doud witnessed worn by people in Union Station, reflecting the population and demographics of all who use the station and who embody the District itself. The template for the collage is derived from the map of the National Mall in DC, specifically around Lafayette Park, the Ellipse and extending to the Washington Monument. This place is the center of government and its complex history, attracting and welcoming people from all over the country and the world. It is a place, in L’Enfant’s words, that is “open to all.” A Great Public Walk was the inaugural Art at Amtrak installation at Washington Union Station’s public concourse in Fall 2023.

Tim Doud, born in 1961, graduated from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago with an MFA in Painting and Drawing. He is the Co-Founder of STABLE in Washington DC, the 'sindikit project in Baltimore and Co-editor of Out of Place: Artists, Pedagogy and Purpose. The craft of making interests him, as well as the final legibility and look of the made object. Tim Doud’s paintings and drawings address two seemingly distinct bodies of work, one figurative and one abstract. These bodies of works serve as a backdrop to broader discussions around constructed identities, branding and commodity culture. Historically, he is a portraitist and is interested in how portraiture functions as practice and cultural signifiers. When he begins a new series of works — figurative, or abstract — he establishes perimeters — rules and obstacles governing the craft and development of the work.

Follow the artist on Instagram @timdoud_art and visit his website at timdoud.net.

KAREN MARGOLIS

Sakura, 2024
Paper, wire, fiber, maps and other mixed media
including found objects mounted on chicken wire

Washington Union Station Metropolitan Lounge

Sakura captures an impressionistic experience of Washington, DC’s spectacular landscape from night to day and dawn to dusk through color and texture. Margolis created a vibrant, lush tapestry assemblage from discarded materials. Inspired by wabi-sabi philosophy honoring the beauty of imperfection, her process is directed at reshaping personal, collective and historical ruptures through the power of color and form. Margolis uses maps to connect the body, mind and environment. She considers paper as a container for ideas and feelings and the sphere as the perfect order in which to contain the chaos of life. Margolis molds damaged maps and materials into spherical form as an alchemical transformation of energy, generating new life from fragments. The transitioning states of cherry blossoms, or Sakura, from bloom to decay and rebirth are integral symbols throughout the work, alluding to turbulence and vitality that epitomize the fleeting nature of existence. You can also find Margolis’ work, Continuum, in the Metropolitan Lounge at Moynihan Train Hall.

Karen Margolis is a multi-discipline, process-based artist experimenting with structure, form and materiality that blurs the distinction between interior and exterior worlds and alludes to states of transition. She has created a public art installation for the 2020 Art on Paper Fair and completed a public art commission of mosaic panels for the MTA Arts in Transit Brooklyn 86 Street N line subway station in 2018. Recent solo gallery exhibitions include 490 Atlantic Gallery, Brooklyn, Foley Gallery, New York, K. Imperial Fine Arts, San Francisco and Garish & Hahn, Los Angeles. Her work was included in the “Cut up/Cut out" exhibition, traveling to regional museums throughout the United States from 2016 through 2021. Margolis’ work was featured in the Paper Biennial at the Rijswijk Museum in the Netherlands and additionally in solo exhibitions at Bridgewater University, MA, Salon Zurcher, Paris and in collaboration with M Missoni, New York City through Garish & Hahn. Prior exhibitions include, Rockland Center for the Arts, The Hunterdon Art Museum, Weatherspoon Art Museum, The Fine Arts Center of the University of Massachusetts in Amherst, The Aldrich Museum of Contemporary Art, Parrish Art Museum and The Delaware Center for Contemporary Art. Margolis received a workspace residency at Dieu Donne Papermill and a Pollock-Krasner Foundation Grant. Residing in New York City, she received a BS in Psychology and certificate in Microscopy. Her work is represented internationally in public collections.

Follow the artist on Instagram @karenmargolis and visit her website at karenmargolisart.com.

ALLISON MARIA RODRIGUEZ

A Human Glimpse of Cosmic Time, 2024
Video Installation

Moynihan Train Hall, Main Hall Digital Screens
In Partnership with Empire State Development

Artist Allison Maria Rodriguez investigates our perception of time by transporting neolithic monuments from the landscape of Northern Ireland into the modern transit epicenter of Moynihan Train Hall. All footage was filmed by Rodriguez during a residency in Northern Ireland sponsored and supported by Digital Arts Studios, Belfast. These sacred sites were often constructed to record the movement and cyclical nature of the heavens, while also conjuring access to a mystical, spiritual sense of time outside human understanding. Placed within a contemporary urban space specifically built and utilized by standardized time (railway time, a fairly new invention of modernity necessitated by mass transit), these quiet yet visually striking sites ask us to look outside the present moment — even for just an instant — and behold an interconnected existence larger than ourselves. Through an evocation of human history, astronomy and divinity, the work encourages viewers to shift their understanding of their position in the world, consider climate change and contemplate our role as future ancestors.

Allison Maria Rodriguez is a first-generation Cuban-American interdisciplinary artist working predominantly in video installation. Through a blending of video, digital animation, photography, drawing, performance, sculpture, collage and installation, Rodriguez creates immersive experiential spaces that focus extensively on climate change, species extinction and the interconnectivity of existence. Her award-winning work has been exhibited internationally and operates at the intersection of environmental and social justice. Rodriguez is based in Boston, MA and is currently the inaugural Artist-in-Residence for the Biology of Trauma Initiative at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard.

CAROLINE KENT

Daydreaming, 2024
Digital print on vinyl adhesive film

Chicago Union Station

Adorning the lower-level hallway and track-facing windows of Chicago Union Station, Daydreaming by Caroline Kent is a tribute to the ephemeral yet enduring moments of travel that become imprinted in our memories. The artwork captures the essence of these fleeting encounters — objects and architectures that seem like a blend of images yet are later distilled in our minds as vivid compositions.

The scenes are both familiar and dreamlike: an architectural feature on a building façade, the splash of a fountain or a solitary barn standing quietly in the distance. With time, the sounds, colors and smells of each experience merge, creating a fragmented yet touching narrative that gets tucked away and revisited during moments of introspection. The shapes, colors, composition and translucent materiality of Daydreaming encapsulate the ways in which we rearrange these poignant mementos, crafting visual emblems of past journeys that shift and evolve over time, some resonating more than others.

Caroline Kent is a Chicago-based visual artist. She earned a BS in Art at Illinois State University and an MFA at the University of Minnesota. She is a 2020 Artadia Chicago Awardee and is currently an Assistant Professor of Art, Theory and Practice at Northwestern University.

POSE

Accord, 2024
Digital print on vinyl adhesive film

Chicago Union Station

For the installation at Chicago Union Station, POSE aimed to transform the space into a bright abstracted narrative loosely inspired by a wedding photo shoot that was taking place in the station during his first site visit. The photo shoot reminded POSE of how the station represents connection... how it brings people closer together, ultimately making relationships possible. He used that concept to create his own nonlinear visual narrative, titled Accord, that unfolds across the station walls and engages viewers in a layered story.

The installation design evokes an oversized comic strip that's bursting out of the panels and engulfing the viewer, reflecting the overlapping passenger narratives that take place as people move through the station, each on their own journey, although momentarily in the same space, as they wait to catch their train. Like the characters in Accord, POSE encourages viewers to go beyond what is familiar and explore the world, connect with others and experience the deep liberation that occurs when we reward our curious spirit through travel.

Artist POSE (Jordan Nickel) has an inventive ability to take common objects and emotions and transform them into impactful, elaborate artworks through his signature use of vivid colors, layered symbolism, multimedia application and dense storylines. He gravitates toward universal human emotions like love, loss and triumph and presents them in both small and large-scale two-dimensional artworks and three-dimensional installations. He was born in Illinois and currently lives and works in Chicago.

CHAD KOURI

Reflection Pools Monument, 2024
Digital print on vinyl adhesive film

Chicago Union Station

The metallic silver circles in Reflection Pools Monument encourage the experience of deep looking that prioritizes the viewer’s perspective. With roots in ancient Persian gardens, reflecting pools are serene surfaces of still water that act like mirrors, offering a moment to pause and reflect both physically and mentally. Similarly, the metallic silver circles in Kouri’s artwork invite viewers to see their surroundings from a tranquil point of view. Together, the circular mirror-like surface and the flat-colored backgrounds are meant to make you feel calm, grounded, and cared for.

Notice different aspects of your surroundings shift in and out of focus as you move about. Take note of how the circles change when walking past at different times of the day. This “change” acts as a reminder to lead a life of curiosity over contempt, wonder over resentment and respect for both you and the world around you.

Chad Kouri is a Chicago-based artist, musician and storyteller interested in the healing powers of color, sound and abstraction. His mixed-race identity is mirrored in his multidisciplinary studio practice with interests in color theory, visual communication, radical joy, social justice and community empowerment.

NEKISHA DURRETT

Farewell, We’re Good and Gone, 2024
Digital print on vinyl adhesive film

Washington Union Station

Farewell, We’re Good and Gone encourages viewers to consider what is revealed or concealed when information is filtered across time. Through personal and collective histories that contain both joy and pain, beauty and sadness, artist Nekisha Durrett illuminates marginalized narratives of quiet resistance and the enduring resilience of spirit.

This site-specific installation amplifies a central, but often overlooked, aspect of American history: The Great Migration. The piece addresses the more than six million Black Americans who migrated to the North and West from 1916 - 1970, and the railways that made that movement possible. Durrett used Midjourney AI to create an archive of adventurous, hopeful, Black figures and placed them throughout the foreground, touching on her own family’s journey from North Carolina to Washington, DC in search of better economic and educational opportunities.

These figures, as well as objects relevant to this moment in history, are set within a triangular grid overlaid with a gradual color gradient. This grid is inspired by the intricate cathedral-like windows in the Great Hall of the station and by the brightly colored geometric motifs used by Black quilters. Quilts were integral to the Great Migration, as the designs encoded secret messages for those fleeing the South during slavery. Contemporary travelers stand below this expansive work and are reminded of how Black resilience motivated an inspiring pursuit of freedom during a time that was often full of fear and uncertainty.

Nekisha Durrett is a Washington, DC-based mixed-media artist who uses the visual language of mass media to highlight histories that are not often celebrated. Her work contemplates the unreliability of memory and how biases filter information over time and reference individual and collective histories of Black life and imagination. Durrett earned a BFA at The Cooper Union in NYC and MFA from The University of Michigan.

VIVA DANCE SCHOOL

Interpretive dance performance, 2024

Washington Union Station

Dancers from the Washington, DC-based Viva School celebrate the unveiling of Nekisha Durrett's Farewell, We're Good and Gone with three performances on October 1, 2024.

ROXANA AZAR

Flourish, 2024
Windows, Cira Skybridge, digital print on moiré illusion film

Philadelphia William H. Gray III 30th Street Station
Customer Service Window, Main Concourse

Roxana Azar’s work focuses on how plant life can thrive, even in challenging circumstances. By digitally manipulating photographs, the artist creates botanical-inspired works that evoke the vitality of prosperous, lush environments filled with movement and energy.

Flourish was created by layering, abstracting and manipulating photos taken in greenhouses across the country. A greenhouse creates and sustains the conditions for botanical transplants to flourish, despite the plant’s change in location and climate. The windows of the Cira Skybridge are transformed into a greenhouse-like space where Azar’s botanical forms, created with bold colors and simple gestures, move and flow seamlessly alongside the activity on the bridge. Similarly, the digital print on moiré illusion film is meant to be seen in motion—the colors and forms undulate as you pass by. The playful compositions draw a parallel between the vital root systems of plants and the importance of our transportation systems. Our transit systems, much like the elements of a plant, are integral to creating connections and helping networks of people flourish and grow.

Roxana Azar is a Philadelphia-based multi-disciplinary artist. Their plexiglass sculptures, light art and digital photo collages create dynamic and variable viewing experiences. Images inspired by nature are distorted and manipulated through transparencies, color-shifting shadows and reflective materials. Their work includes holographic vases, mobiles, furniture and lucite florals with images of collaged greenhouses and gardens.

CHITRA GANESH

Regeneration, 2024
Digital print on vinyl adhesive

Penn Station Rotunda

Brooklyn-based artist Chitra Ganesh has developed an expansive body of work rooted in drawing and painting, which now encompasses animations, collages, large-scale installations, murals, video and sculpture. Ganesh uses her artwork to reconcile representations of femininity, sexuality and power and to address the interconnectedness of the human experience and the natural environment.

Similar to the digital animation titled Coherence that Ganesh created for Moynihan Train Hall, Regeneration at Penn Station invites viewers to slow down and step out of their hectic commutes by taking in the site-specific work Ganesh has designed in response to the space. She features natural elements rendered in a graphic style that evokes aspects of pop culture and comic books and echoes themes found in science fiction and outer space-time travel.

Some of the subject matter, such as the Rose of Jericho and Welwitschia plant of Southwest Africa, represent resilience as they naturally have the ability to live for long periods of time and to regenerate themselves after periods of dormancy. Much of the flora depicted are common, like dandelions and irises, that one might encounter while walking around New York City and the fruits depicted, such as tangerines or olives, carry specific cultural significance. Outside of the station walls, these natural elements punctuate the experience of urban stress with a beauty and abundance that perseveres beyond the limitations of humanity.

Regeneration is meant to ground us and remind one of the vibrancy and life that thrives outside of man-made forms and constructed realities. The installation reconnects us with elements that transcend habits and desires, ultimately encouraging a regeneration of perspective and a reset of both the mental and the physical.

EIRINI LINARDAKI

Working Background, 2024
Digital print on vinyl adhesive film

Penn Station, Departure Concourse and Hilton Passageway

As an artist deeply connected to public transportation through her father’s work as a bus driver in Greece, Eirini Linardaki is thrilled to present Working Background, which incorporates fabrics and patterns found both within the station and collected in the neighboring garment district. These patterns represent the multiculturalism, energy and strength of Penn Station and its significance to the city. Central to the project are portraits of the dedicated people who make Penn Station operate on a daily basis. From traction power electricians to systems engineers, station cleaners to Amtrak’s beloved Red Caps, this work is an ode to their commitment and the human connections that support our public transportation systems.

Linardaki uses both digital and analog methods to create collages that evoke feelings of memory and themes of societal exchange and community. She seeks to foster cross-cultural understanding and appreciation, to be a catalyst for dialogue and connection.

Eirini Linardaki, born in Athens, Greece, is a Greek/French visual artist and public art project developer based in New York City, Newark and the island of Crete. From her work as an environmental activist in her youth in Greece to later work with Handicap International in Liberia advocating for people with disabilities, her journey has been shaped by environmental action, commitment to social justice and human connection.

She received her fine arts education at L.I.T. Limerick, Ireland, the Universität Der Kunst of Berlin, Germany and the Ecole Superieure des Beaux-Arts of Marseille, France. Her projects, rooted in community engagement, emphasize accessibility and multiculturalism.

Linardaki has developed numerous public art projects in the US, collaborating with organizations such as New York City’s Parks Department, the NYC Mayor’s Office for Climate Policy, and the NYC Department of Transportation. As part of her community-based art practice, she has been an active member of Audible’s Newark Artist Collaboration, an initiative to transform Newark, NJ through public art. In 2024, she created a large-scale digital installation for Grand Central Terminal commissioned by the MTA Arts & Design and one for the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway in DUMBO.

Linardaki's work was recognized with the 2022 Artivist Award from Sing for Hope and the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts Newark Artist Accelerator Grant for 2023. She is the mother of two children.

Keep up with the artist via Instagram @linardakiandco and her website linardaki-parisot.com.

MARISA MORÁN JAHN

Re/Connections, 2023
Digital print on mesh fabric

Block 675 Fence, 30th Street, NYC

Located along Manhattan’s West Side Highway, adjacent to the Hudson River, and on former marshland, Re/Connections by artist Marisa Morán Jahn is a series of large-scale digital prints on mesh fabric that reflect on our interdependent relationship with water. 

Re/Connections draws influence from Meso-American and Chinese papercut art forms where the punctures are said to let the past through. For Jahn, who is of Chinese and Ecuadorian descent, the holes within the work and the mesh surface serve as portals or passages connecting both times and places. In Re/Connections, the artist meditates on the site’s former history as a key trading route and source of sustenance for animals and humans. By placing the artwork around the staging area where Amtrak and the Gateway Development Commission will build a new rail tunnel linking New York and New Jersey, Re/Connections invites meditation on the transformative role of transportation and trade routes that still exist today. “Our stewardship of public resources like water, railways and civic space are critical to how communities thrive and strengthen resilience,” says Jahn.

Marisa Morán Jahn’s works redistribute power, “exemplifying the possibilities of art as social practice” (ArtForum). Jahn, who explores “civic spaces and the radical art of play” (Chicago Tribune), codesigns small to urban-scale projects with immigrant families, domestic workers and public housing residents. Jahn’s work has engaged millions via the United Nations, Tribeca Film Festival, Obama’s White House, Venice Biennale of Architecture and through media coverage in the BBC, CNN, PBS Newshour, The New York Times, Univision Global and more. She is a Sundance and Creative Capital grantee, a Senior Researcher at MIT (her alma mater), an artist in residence at The National Public Housing Museum and the Director of Integrated Design at Parsons/The New School. With Rafi Segal, Jahn co-authored a book, Design & Solidarity (Columbia University Press, 2023), and co-founded Carehaus, the U.S.’s first care-based co-housing project. She is represented by Sapar Contemporary.

Follow the artist on Instagram @marisa_jahn and visit her website at marisajahn.com.

Special Thank You To

Marisa Morán Jahn / Studio REV- 

Micah Campbell Smith, Community Developer 

Ananya Mishra, Studio Assistant

ADAM CRAWFORD

EUPHONIC & CHROMATIC DRIFT, 2023
Digital print on clear vinyl adhesive film

William H. Gray III 30th Street Station, Main Concourse

Adam Crawford’s practice is grounded in his desire to create visually engaging and stylistically unique artwork that appeals to a diverse audience. When developing the Art at Amtrak commission, Crawford focused on the strong lines of the existing architecture, the verticality and height of the space and the spatial symmetry of the main concourse. He also considered the relationship between motion and sound and how both are amplified in a major transit hub, ultimately impacting its overall energy.

The resulting work, Euphonic and Chromatic Drift, is a clear vinyl mural on the window facades at the East and West ends of the station that employs pattern, rounded edges, and color as a response to the linear composition of the architecture. Crawford used the existing gridwork design as the base and sketched forms and pathways that extend from and within the lines of each window frame and column. His resonating shapes and saturated color communicate movement and energy through and around the frames, echoing the collective flow of those who pass through the station on any given day.

Adam Crawford has lived and worked in Philadelphia for 29 years. He has degrees from both the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts and the University of Pennsylvania. Crawford is particularly drawn to both interior and exterior large-scale commissions and has several public-facing murals scattered throughout Philadelphia.

Follow the artist on Instagram @acrawfordart and visit his website at adamcrawfordart.com.

An award-winning public arts curator and producer, Debra Simon has more than 30 years of experience in visual and performing arts programming for civic organizations, the real estate industry and other companies. While working at the Downtown Alliance, she created the Music at Castle Clinton concert series, Dine Around Downtown and co-founded the River-to-River Festival in 2002. As the Director of Times Square Arts, Simon oversaw Midnight Moment, the world’s largest digital art exhibition on electronic billboards and the annual Valentine Heart design competition, among other projects for the over 300,000 daily visitors to Times Square. As Artistic Director at Brookfield Properties, she led a national arts program that planned and executed multi-disciplinary programming, presenting over 500 free events annually in New York, Denver, Los Angeles and Houston. Collaborations with artists, architects, landscape designers, local arts organizations and presenting partners have contributed to her expertise in creating and reimagining public spaces. Current clients include Amtrak, Taconic Partners, Hudson Yard Hell’s Kitchen Alliance, Fifth Avenue Association and Third Street Music School Settlement. For more information, visit Debra Simon Art Consulting. Simon is collaborating with producer Common Ground Arts to realize Art at Amtrak. Visit dsimonartconsulting.com for more information.