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If you walk through Union Square and notice skateboards hanging from the trees, don’t be alarmed. Take a closer look; every board has a portrait painted on it.

Seventeen artists, ranging from established professionals to students, will be exhibiting works in a variety of media for the Somerville Arts Council’s 11th annual Windows Art Project. Instead of showing in galleries, the artists will be installing their works in public areas of Union Square.

Owen Hope, an intern curator at the Somerville Arts Council, conceived of the theme, “Acquainted with the Night,” which is inspired by a Robert Frost poem by the same name. Hope said he thought many people miss out on the idea of “night” because they’re indoors, and his goal for the project was to give people a sense of what’s going on after dark falls.

“We asked artists to explore the atmosphere and essence of the hours after sundown,” said Rachel Strutt, program manager at the SAC.

The Windows Art Project has grown beyond its name, said Strutt. The exhibits are no longer restricted to storefront windows. This year, art can also be found in an overgrown yard, projected onto a giant, blank wall and hanging from trees.

The skateboards hanging from trees outside the SCAT Building, for example, are the work of Mykim Dang. Each one features a portrait of someone she met during the night hours, painted off a photograph she took of them.

“My philosophy is taking art off its pedestal,” Dang said, adding that owners of her pieces have the choice to hang the boards like fine art or to use them, potentially destroying them.

While it’s tough to miss tree art, some of the pieces are a bit more subtle. In Citizens Bank, a painting of the Boston Sand and Gravel site at night will hang. The artist, Somerville resident Mary Keane, was looking for a place that looked great at nighttime to paint, and the illumination of that site caught her eye.

S.T. Woolf will be installing a small sculpture on the roof of the India Palace building, but it will then be projected by lights onto a large blank wall. The lights are solar-powered and triggered by motion; when someone walks by, the lights will flash on and project the shadow of “Night Mare,” a bed being drawn by four horses.

Not all of the art is visual. Derek Hoffend’s sound installation on the Bow Street traffic island will be solar-powered and motion-triggered as well. As people move around the space, they will hear what Strutt calls “curious chirping noises.” The exhibit is light sensitive, changing with the sunlight, and the noises become more dramatic at night.

At least one artist is letting others’ perception of nighttime drive her work. Hannah Burr’s exhibit at 24 Lester Ave. will look to the average passerby like an overgrown yard filled with turquoise orbs. In fact, the orbs were left behind by the actual installation of the piece: a team of people recording their impressions of nightfall in the space.

The team is a diverse group of people, some of whom have impairments that will affect their experience, said Burr. They’ll be moving systematically through the yard, dropping orbs in each space they stand to record their impressions. Their observations will be available for people to read in the front of the yard.

In other areas, two artists painted a mural on the plywood of the boarded-up bar Irish Eyes, as much an attempt to show art as to beautify an otherwise unsightly window.

Strutt said that the mission of the Windows Art Project is to both remedy the lack of gallery space in Somerville and to deliver art to people who might not normally go to an exhibit. It originally took place in Davis Square, but eventually, Strutt said, the SAC felt that “Davis was getting a lot of love,” and moved to Union Square.

The event takes a large amount of community cooperation. Businesses open their doors to artists and work with them to customize the spaces, and the SAC puts together the puzzle of which artists’ works can fit into what type of window or other space.
The exhibits will remain in place until June 15.