Bay Ridge artist displays World Pride piece at Macy’s in Manhattan

It’s a miracle on 34th Street for a Bay Ridge artist.

Local Jenna Morello has been painting murals and pieces of all sizes around the neighborhood for several years. As her reach has expanded to different states and countries, she was selected to have one of her pieces displayed at a window at Macy’s in Manhattan, the largest department store in the United States, in celebration of World Pride NYC and the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall Riots.

Morello received the opportunity through the LISA project, a mural collective based in Little Italy. LISA was doing a number of murals around the city ahead of pride, and asked Morello to create one of their four Macy’s window displays.  

Morello took one of her signature images, a heart in pieces, and created something new for the display — a shattered, melting heart in rainbow colors.

“It’s about looking back on what happened, where we’ve come from and how, there’s still some pain, but hopefully we are healing from all of that,” said Morello.

Once Morello finished the piece, it was printed on a massive 11×7 canvas and hung in the Macy’s window.

“It was nice to get off the subway and kind of observe how people were interacting with it, not knowing I created it. About a dozen people in the course of 10-15 minutes took pictures in front of it,” she said.

Morello was taken aback by the moment.

“I didn’t know what it was going to look like until I saw the size, the scale, people interacting with it,” she said. “It was a super proud moment to see my parents and friends see it. It’s so far a career highlight.”

Morello recently came back from a trip to Israel to display her art and is now planning trips to California, Indiana and other areas to branch out further.

“I think I have the best job in the world. It’s been a couple of years of onward and upward projects and  I hope to just keep going at this momentum,” Morello said. “I definitely feel blessed doing all of this.”

To view Morello’s work, visit www.jennamorello.com.