Tiled and True

The NYPD has a mini-station set up on the traffic island in Times Square. Perfectly understandable as I think this blog has made evident that policing is highly necessary in these parts.

But the police department isn't content with just serving and protecting the good citizens of Times Square. They would also like to contribute to the beautification of their surroundings with this fine example of mosaic, um, artwork.



I'm not really an art history expert or connoisseur per se, so please take the following as mere guesses on the meaning of this piece.

1) The artist did a bit of word association: Police -> Run. And then just made the second half of that analogy plural.
2) The blue represents the river of humanity which ebbs and flows in Times Square. The brown represents the desert wasteland of those alienating themselves from said river. The green is a great accent color.
3) Might this be a subversive Nostradamus-esque prediction regarding a plague of some sort? Those green blobs sure look like locusts descending on the Hudson to me.
4) The NYPD is a ray of protective light in a world otherwise filled with those scary trees from The Wizard of Oz.
5) The artist was attempting to create a photorealistic depiction of a police officer in action but the peon paid to actually install the tiles was going through his post-modern period, had just returned Pollock to Netflix.