"People don’t get to see enough art—and art is more than what you see in museums and galleries. ... It gives people joy. As an artist, I see making public art as an opportunity to give something back."
That’s how Cara Lynch ’12, adjunct Adelphi University faculty member for the BFA in Studio Art and BA in Art programs, describes her passion for bringing her artistic vision to city blocks, transit stations and public libraries around our regions. Receiving public commissions has allowed her to bring a stunning glass skyscape to Newark Penn Station, painted roadways in Manhattan and Brooklyn, and brilliant stairwells in a local public library. She often shares her inspiration in behind-the-scenes videos, and brings her art majors along with her to installations, giving them hands-on experience in real-world design challenges.
Here’s a look at her latest projects.
Cara Lynch ’12: Inspiring Joy
See how the artist’s kaleidoscopic works are bringing bursts of color to unlikely spaces in Manhattan, Brooklyn, Long Island, Newark and Nashville. Launch Gallery
Cara Lynch ’12: Inspiring Joy
See how the artist’s kaleidoscopic works are bringing bursts of color to unlikely spaces in Manhattan, Brooklyn, Long Island, Newark and Nashville. 11 Photos-
Carpet Collage is a 12 x 160-foot mural installed on Vanderbilt Avenue in Brooklyn, New York, between Dean and Bergen streets.
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Carpet College (detail).
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Inheritance: In Memory of American Glass is an installation of 30 glass panels, arranged in six compositions of five panels, at the Ditmas Avenue stop of the F subway station in Brooklyn, New York. It celebrates American household glass objects, including depression glass, carnival glass and early American pressed glass.
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One of the Inheritance compositions, with a reflection of the neighboring cityscape
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Radiate Positivity shines color into Terminal C at the Nashville International Airport in Tennessee. It was created for the ninth annual Bonnaroo-Themed Skylight Exhibition at the airport, which celebrates the Bonnaroo Music and Arts Festival.
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Looking up at Radiate Positivity
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Ebb and Flow, a mural at the Patchogue-Medford Library, Patchogue, New York, was a community effort led by Lynch. Children and adults from the town were invited to the library to work on the mural by painting by number. The mural returned to Lynch’s studio for additional work and was then installed in October 2024.
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Jewel Box is a vinyl installation on the skylights of Platform H at Penn Station in Newark, New Jersey. The 2025 installation was commissioned by NJ TRANSIT’s Transit Arts.
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Jewel Box
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As Above, So Below is a 3,000-square-foot asphalt mural in a pedestrian plaza on Varick Street in Manhattan between two entrances to the Holland Tunnel.
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Adelphi students join in to complete the Varick Street project in Manhattan, getting valuable hands-on experience in public art.