Gov­er­nors Island Ice Sculp­ture Show 2024

Gov­er­nors Island Arts and Times Square Arts are pleased to announce a new part­ner­ship for Gov­er­nors Island’s third annu­al Ice Sculp­ture Show. The fes­tive win­ter event will coin­cide with the annu­al Love in Times Square fête on Feb­ru­ary 14, 2024, which cel­e­brates Valentine’s Day with wed­dings, sur­prise pro­pos­als, and vow renewals in the square’s plazas.

This year’s Ice Sculp­ture Show will also fea­ture food trucks, ice carv­ing demos, live sets from DJ Shan­non and Dada Cozmic curat­ed by Bru­jas and Radio Boni­ta, and more win­ter fun. The live DJ sets will be streamed live online via Radio Boni­ta from 12 – 2pm.

EVENT SCHED­ULE
12 – 2pm – Live ice carv­ing along Colonels Row
2:30pm — Awards Ceremony
3 – 5pm – Post-Show Party

JURY
Jen­na Lyons, cre­ative agent at large and cast mem­ber of Bravo’s The Real House­wives of New York City
Miya Lee, writer and editor
New York City Coun­cil Mem­ber Chi Ossé
Hol­lis Kam, Senior Vice Pres­i­dent of Peo­ple and Cul­ture at Times Square Alliance and decade-long ordained wed­ding offi­ciant for Love in Times Square

ARTIST FINAL­ISTS
Art Doman­tay and Rober­to Flo­res (@domantayart)  — Doman­tay is known for his fab­ri­ca­tion work on ambi­tious pub­lic art projects. In his col­lab­o­ra­tion with Flo­res, they pro­pose a mul­ti-dimen­­sion­al, kinet­ic heart sculp­ture acti­vat­ed by human touch.
Aziki­we Mohammed (@misterace12) — As a native New York­er, Mohammed plans to depict the noto­ri­ous King Kong, pay­ing homage to the ape’s tale as an immi­grant and his com­pli­cat­ed yet leg­endary love sto­ry with New York City.
Kate­ri­na Sokolovskaya (@katerina.sokolovskaya.art)— For her ethe­re­al con­cept, hands and legs emerge from a cloud as two hid­den peo­ple embrace with­in it. Sokolovskaya aims to take an abstract and escapist approach to the theme of love.
Lloyd Fos­ter (@_lloydfoster) — Fos­ter fre­quent­ly fea­tures angels in his work, and plans to use this motif as a sym­bol of love for his art piece. Hearts will replace the angel’s wings for his​“Love Angels” sculpture.
Zeel­ie Brown (@zeel­iebrownlovesy­ou) — Brown pos­es a sculp­ture that reflects her focus on Black love, soul, and New York City’s nat­ur­al and archi­tec­tur­al land­scapes. The piece aims to instill passers­by with a sense of free­dom, love, and con­nec­tion to nature and place.
Lovie Pig­na­ta (@iLovieNY) — For her piece titled​“Smit­ten,” Pig­na­ta depicts two cozy mit­tens with knit details touch­ing to form a heart, ref­er­enc­ing the begin­ning stages of love in the win­try months.
Josef Pin­lac (@Istillheartnewyork)— Two hands con­join to form a heart for Pinlac’s work — a now viral world­wide sym­bol stem­ming from Japan — in which vis­i­tors have the oppor­tu­ni­ty to step inside the frame for a spe­cial moment of love. Pin­lac is a mem­ber of Con Artist Col­lec­tive in the Low­er East Side.
Paras­too Aho­van (@parastooahovan) — Ahovan’s design rep­re­sents a tree in an abstract form to sug­gest the inter­con­nect­ed­ness of life and love. Each branch and leaf is sym­bol­ic of growth and life’s mean­der­ing jour­ney, while the roots delve into the rich soil of tra­di­tion and resilience.
Aki­ra Yoshimu­ra (@akirayoshimura_) — Yoshimu­ra demon­strates his love for New York City where he met his wife and friends with an ode in the shape of the King and Queen of hearts — the Queen’s card depict­ing the Stat­ue of Lib­er­ty and the King’s card don­ning a quin­tes­sen­tial NYC street vend­ing cart.
Sal­ly Twin (@thesallybeauty)  — Twin’s​“Game of Love” is a dynam­ic take on love and the game of shuf­fle­board, allow­ing vis­i­tors to phys­i­cal­ly inter­act with the sculpture’s playable pieces for an immer­sive experience.

Each select­ed final­ist is award­ed $2,000 and will be paired with a pro­fes­sion­al ice carv­er from Okamo­to Stu­dio for the live event on Gov­er­nors Island. Vis­i­tors are invit­ed to wit­ness this real-time ice carv­ing and vote on their favorite sculp­ture for the ​“People’s Choice Award” at the end of the event. A larg­er-scale ver­sion of the win­ning sculp­ture will then be carved and installed by Okamo­to Stu­dio in Times Square as a visu­al anchor for the district’s annu­al Valentine’s Day events, where New York­ers and vis­i­tors alike will cel­e­brate love through sur­prise pro­pos­als, wed­dings, and vow renew­al cer­e­monies on the Square’s icon­ic Red Steps.