Mahwah Artist Wins Blue Man Group Art Contest

Residents may know of the Blue Man Group from its off-Broadway show that has become a hit in performances across the country. But, one Mahwah artist recently got to know the atypical performance better when she traveled to Chicago to watch Blue Men unveil a large-scale version of one of her paintings.

Earlier this year, the Blue Man Group put out a call for artists to enter the 2013 Blue Man Group Art Competition by submitting work that visually reflected the feel of the group’s music.

From a pool of pieces submitted from across the country, “Pulse,” a painting by Mahwah 26-year-old Cody Rounds, was one of six selected winners.

Rounds’s artwork is now displayed inside the Blue Man Group’s Briar Street Theater in Chicago, and since an unveiling ceremony in September, a 10-by-10 recreation of it is installed outside the theater.

“I think it’s what music would look like,” Rounds told Patch of the piece, which she said she made using a technique that uses very thick paint so as to almost create a three-dimensional sculpture out of globs of paint.

“I am so grateful for the opportunity to have my work displayed, and for it to be received and appreciated by the public,” she said.

Working in a Hackensack law office by day, Rounds has a studio in Sloatsburg, NY where she spends most of her spare time painting and sculpting.

“I love it, it’s what I want to be doing,” she said of art.

“I am hoping to go to grad school to continue to pursue art, and to really break into the contemporary art world.”