BOCA RATON, Fla. (Dec. 6, 2024) – Greater Boca Raton Beach and Park District Commissioner Craig Ehrnst needed only one word to describe the new mural installed at Sugar Sand Park.
“Spectacular!” Ehrnst said. “The memories this makes will be phenomenal.”
City and District officials joined James Prosek as the world-renowned artist publicly unveiled his mural during a ceremony on Friday morning.
Prosek’s mural pays tribute to Florida’s natural ecosystem by featuring turtles, dolphins, birds, plants and more. It’s the first of the City of Boca Raton’s “Public Art Boca” projects to appear in a District-owned park.
“I think it’s fantastic,” District chair Erin Wright said. “It represents Florida really well.”
A resident of Connecticut, Prosek has been coming to Florida for inspiration for decades. The mural, which adorns the carousel side of Sugar Sand’s Family Pavilion next to the Science Playground, is actually a composite of many of Prosek’s earlier works.
Prosek created the originals using water colors, acrylic and oil paints, then scanned those pieces into a computer. Once Prosek completed the design, Boston-based company Artaic printed the file onto a series of half-inch tiles. A crew spent the past week installing the more than 217,000 tiles that form the mosaic.
“I’m very excited that this piece will be seen by a lot of people, and hopefully enjoyed,” Prosek told the crowd gathered for the ceremony.
In his address Prosek also praised Sugar Sand.
“It’s an incredible park,” Prosek said. “I don’t know that I’ve ever seen a public park this beautiful.”
Wright felt the impact of those words.
“I think we take for granted that we have such a wonderful park system here – especially this park in particular,” Wright said following the ceremony. “It’s so different from all the parks you go to throughout the United States. So for him to come from Connecticut and say what a special place it is, that’s a reminder to us that it’s such a special place.”
Members of the Boca Raton community are able to view the mural during normal park operating hours.
Prosek’s work has been shown at The Royal Academy of Arts in London, The Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, The Yale Center for British Art, The Asia Society Hong Kong Center, The Smithsonian American Art Museum, The Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum, The Addison Gallery of American Art, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, The New Britain Museum of American Art, The Buffalo Bill Center of the West, The North Carolina Museum of Art, The National Academy of Sciences in Washington, DC and the Yale University Art Gallery, among other institutions.
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ABOUT THE GREATER BOCA RATON BEACH AND PARK DISTRICT: The District is committed to the acquisition and development of parks and recreation facilities. It seeks to provide entertaining and engaging leisure, educational, athletic and cultural activities to all of its residents and guests. The District owns multiple recreational facilities and/or parks in the Boca Raton area, including Sugar Sand Park, Patch Reef Park, the Swim and Racquet Center, North Park and Ocean Strand. In addition, through interlocal agreements with the City of Boca Raton, it funds the operating expenses of the Gumbo Limbo Nature Center, Red Reef Park, Spanish River Athletic Facilities and Mizner Bark Dog Park.
