A new art installation is lighting up the Third Street Tunnel in downtown Los Angeles.
It is the work of LA-based artist Tory Dipietro and features a giant neon heart and a tunnel of rainbow neon lights. LA Times reporter Deborah Vankin met up with Dipietro as the project was completed. In an interview for “LA Times Today,” Vankin talked about the inspiration behind the work.
The Light at the End of the Tunnel is Dipietro’s monument to hope for Los Angeles.
“The artwork is a 22-foot-high steel heart that hangs over the exit of the Third Street Tunnel downtown, and it’s fronted by the words ‘Los Angeles’ written in aluminum script that glows at night backed by neon. She also rimmed the concrete beams inside the tunnel ceiling with neon, each a different color so that the artwork forms this sort of cylindrical tunnel of rainbow light. So basically, Tory means it to be an immersive, on-the-go art experience that cars will drive through. And as the headlights cut through it, they become part of this immersive art experience,” Vankin explained.
Vankin shared how Dipietro was inspired to create the piece.
“The inspiration for this artwork took place in the darkest days of the pandemic. It was April 2020, and Tory, an artist who had been working in neon for a couple of years at that point, had a vision of an enormous heart wrapped in a rainbow. She wanted to bring it to the city in the form of a public artwork. And she didn’t know where it would go. She just had the vision that she wanted to present everybody with this visual monument of hope,” Vankin said.
“I’ve learned firsthand that you can live an entire lifespan of darkness and when that light turns on, it’s like boom! Look at us now,” Dipietro said.
Vankin shared how Dipietro’s upbringing influences her work as an artist.
“Tory had a really hard upbringing. She grew up in Los Angeles. She’s a hometown girl, but she grew up between her father’s house in Montebello and her mother’s house in Temple City, shuttling back and forth between divorced parents. Her father grew and sold pot for a living legally. So it was a sort of financially unstable environment. But art was the one thing that always steadied her. She told me that when she was growing up in this really unstable environment, that she had this happy place that she had conjured in her head. And it was essentially a garden of glowing flowers and plants. And when things got really tough, she would sort of escape there. Then one day in her mid-20s, she thought, ‘Oh my God, those plants and lay in this place in my head, those plants and flowers are neon.’ It all kind of made sense to her, and she got this idea that she was going to also create a garden of neon in real life. She later went on and took a neon workshop at a downtown arts district,” Vankin explained.
Dipietro has now developed a strong enough collector base she can support herself by selling her work.
“The Light at the End of the Tunnel as Tory Dipietro’s gift to the city. She’s telling everybody that they shouldn’t give up hope no matter how bad things get, because there’s always hope. There’s always light, even in the darkest time, even when you can’t see it. When the neon is off, the lights is still there.
And at any moments, the light can go on and everything can change,” Vankin said.
The Light at the End of the Tunnel currently has a two-year permit, but Dipietro hopes to make it permanent. For a schedule and updates on when to visit, check out Dipietro’s Instagram, @ToryDipietro.
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