The HUG Project
The HUGS began as something deeply private. A ritual of self-holding, a way to process grief, tenderness, and healing within my own body. Over time, this intimate practice moved beyond the studio and into the city, unfolding as a public street art project across Philadelphia (and sometimes New York!). What was once a gesture made for myself has become a gesture made for others: oversized arms, looping embraces, painted and placed in unexpected corners of the city, inviting passersby to stop, feel, and remember how vital touch is.
These public hugs are extensions of my studio practice in painting and sculpture. The same themes that run through my vagina and text paintings (lineage, embodiment, intimacy, reclamation) find new life in the street. The hugs translate softness into scale, transforming walls and spaces into open invitations. They echo my sewn sculptures, where limbs and full-bodied forms inhabit space like companions and provocateurs, but here, in public, they belong to everyone.
The HUG is both personal and radical. As street art, it insists on visibility for tenderness, asking what it means to bring intimacy into shared civic space. Each painted hug is a reminder that care is not private alone, but collective, that softness, too, can be monumental.
Philly is the heartbeat of this work. It’s where I built my first business, and where I returned to art after closing it, as a mother, and as an artist committed to connection. Rooted here, the HUG project continues to spread, gaining attention both in real life and online, where people share their encounters under #haveyouhugged.
