Tulips for Bentonville

Tulips for Bentonville is a temporary tactical public art project designed by Dayton Castleman and commissioned by the developers of Oak One Townhomes. The artwork is intended to serve as a gesture of thanks to the surrounding neighborhood for enduring dust and noise during the downtown Bentonville development’s construction phase, and to celebrate Bentonville’s ongoing spring of urban transformation.

Situated adjacent to the disciplines of sculpture, mural arts, mosaic tilework, and digital media, Tulips for Bentonville is composed of 84 multi-colored tulip images rendered with colorful plastic snap-in pixels installed on the chain link fencing surrounding the Oak One Townhomes job site. Tulips for Bentonville spans over 400 feet of fence and is composed of over 18,500 pixels.

Six common tulip colors of orange, red, purple, pink, yellow, and white were selected for the artwork. Traditionally these colors are shared as gestures of gratitude, love, honor, friendship, joy, and empathy, respectively, and reflect a desire for helping build a neighborhood that exemplifies those ideals. The dual-sided nature of the artwork means that it is fully visible on the interior facing surface of the fence as well, providing a more vibrant and novel workspace for those engaged in the project’s construction.