Mary Hawkins is an NYC-based art director, animator, and designer specializing in typography-forward motion graphics and narrative illustration. Her practice spans commercial, fine art, and experimental work, with a focus on evoking wonder through layered design and spirited color.
Her acclaimed animated series Love Letters for the Subway has been exhibited internationally, including a projection on the facade of the Vladem Contemporary Art Museum in Santa Fe and screenings at numerous film festivals. Select stills from the project have also been featured in group exhibitions such as The World’s Borough at Flushing Town Hall in collaboration with The Smithsonian.
Professionally, Hawkins has contributed VFX to Godfrey Reggio’s Once Within a Time (MoMA Films premiere) and served as Art Director for Kokomo City, a Sundance-winning documentary. Early in her career, she contributed illustrations and title designs to word.com, now part of the permanent collections at MoMA San Francisco and the Museum of the Moving Image. She has also created visual elements for projects by artist Slater Bradley.
In addition to her work in visual storytelling, Hawkins is a board member of Gotham Roller Derby, a nonprofit organization where she has played a key leadership role for over a decade. She currently lives and works in Queens, weaving her diverse creative practices into every facet of her art.
Origin: New York City
Currently Exhibiting in: Bushwick, Brooklyn
Website: maryhawkins.com
Social Media: Instagram: @maryhawkinsnyc
Featured Artwork at Bushwick Gallery
Love Letters for the Subway
Year of Creation: 2023
Medium: Video art – 23 individual animated loops (one for each NYC subway line), plus a 2-minute festival cut
Dimensions: Digital, 3000×3000 pixels per loop
Price: Upon request (prints of individual letters available)
Original Music: Carlos Dengler
Description:
Love Letters for the Subway is a kinetic ode to New York’s public transit system, told through 23 animated letterforms that correspond to each MTA subway line. Drawn by hand using Procreate and animated in AfterEffects, each character is infused with architectural textures, neighborhood motifs, and artifacts of daily ridership—from stairwells and signage to pigeons and graffiti. Created while riding the trains themselves, the series invites an intimate, crowd-sourced dialogue; Hawkins often found fellow passengers watching her draw, prompting conversations about shared commutes, local landmarks, and the lives unfolding underground. This is the first time the full set of loops is being exhibited together as a cohesive visual poem to the city.
Exhibition Information
April 2025: “Urban Narratives: The City as Canvas”
Curated by: Fern Messa Joson
Theme: Turning the cityscape into a canvas, this exhibition captures the raw, vibrant energy of urban life through graffiti, street photography, painting, animation, and more.
Exhibition Dates: April 3 – April 10, 2025
Opening Reception: Thursday, April 3 | 6 PM – 8 PM
Guided audio experience
For accessibility, the full video transcript is provided below for those who prefer to read or are unable to listen.
“Step in close, and let your eyes travel—not along tracks, but through letterforms. Love Letters for the Subway is Mary Hawkins’ animated tribute to New York’s public transit system, told not in words, but in motion. Each loop here represents one of the 23 MTA subway lines—A through Z, in spirit if not in signage. But instead of static typography, you’re met with living characters—letters built from the textures of the city itself.
Look closely. In one loop, a pigeon hops through the curve of an R. Another flickers with fluorescent light, mimicking the flick of overhead bulbs in a 7 train tunnel. You’ll spot stairwell patterns, graffiti tags, rush-hour crowds abstracted into color and movement. These aren’t just designs—they’re neighborhoods, commutes, conversations, moments.
Hawkins drew each letter by hand while physically riding the trains, letting the environment shape the form. Sometimes, fellow riders watched over her shoulder, striking up conversations about their own lines, their own New York stories. That spirit of connection—anonymous but intimate—buzzes beneath every frame.
With roots in both commercial and fine art, Hawkins brings her skill in motion graphics into deeply personal terrain. This is a visual poem to the city’s underground pulse—one that celebrates imperfection, rhythm, and shared space.
You don’t need to decipher each letter. Just feel the hum, the shuffle, the love underneath it all.”