In 2001, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority began one of the most unlikely environmental projects in modern urban history. More than 2,500 retired New York City subway cars were stripped, cleaned, and deliberately sunk into the Atlantic Ocean as part of the Redbird Reef programme. What had once carried millions of commuters beneath Manhattan was transformed into a network of artificial reefs stretching from New Jersey to Georgia.
These submerged carriages did not become waste. They became ecosystems. Steel shells turned into coral beds, spawning grounds, and shelter for mussels, crabs, and dense schools of fish. Rust gave way to reef.
This quiet transformation beneath the waves is the conceptual backbone of Lady Pink’s Subway Surfers, 2023.
Known as the first woman to gain international recognition within New York’s graffiti movement, Lady Pink has spent decades chronicling the city’s shifting cultural landscape. In Subway Surfers, she reframes the iconic subway carriage, not as a symbol of urban transit or graffiti mythology, but as a vessel for environmental rebirth.
The familiar silhouette of the train floats in an underwater dreamscape. Coral blooms through its doors. Shoals of fish drift through its windows. What was once loud, metallic, and human becomes silent, fluid, and alive.
This painting marks the first work in Lady Pink’s subway silhouette series, a body of work that fuses her graffiti lineage with ecological storytelling. It is not nostalgia. It is evolution.
LADY PINK
Subway Surfers, 2023
Acrylics and spray on canvas
36 x 38 in
91.4 x 96.5 cm
Reference: DALP005
The work is currently available.
For acquisition enquiries, please contact info@dstassiart.com or reach out via direct message.
In 2001, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority began one of the most unlikely environmental projects in modern urban history. More than 2,500 retired New York City subway cars were stripped, cleaned, and deliberately sunk into the Atlantic Ocean as part of the Redbird Reef programme. What had once carried millions of commuters beneath Manhattan was transformed into a network of artificial reefs stretching from New Jersey to Georgia.
These submerged carriages did not become waste. They became ecosystems. Steel shells turned into coral beds, spawning grounds, and shelter for mussels, crabs, and dense schools of fish. Rust gave way to reef.
This quiet transformation beneath the waves is the conceptual backbone of Lady Pink’s Subway Surfers, 2023.
Known as the first woman to gain international recognition within New York’s graffiti movement, Lady Pink has spent decades chronicling the city’s shifting cultural landscape. In Subway Surfers, she reframes the iconic subway carriage, not as a symbol of urban transit or graffiti mythology, but as a vessel for environmental rebirth.
The familiar silhouette of the train floats in an underwater dreamscape. Coral blooms through its doors. Shoals of fish drift through its windows. What was once loud, metallic, and human becomes silent, fluid, and alive.
This painting marks the first work in Lady Pink’s subway silhouette series, a body of work that fuses her graffiti lineage with ecological storytelling. It is not nostalgia. It is evolution.
LADY PINK
Subway Surfers, 2023
Acrylics and spray on canvas
36 x 38 in
91.4 x 96.5 cm
Reference: DALP005
The work is currently available.
For acquisition enquiries, please contact info@dstassiart.com or reach out via direct message.