Hearts and Graffiti: Checking Out Nick Weber’s Rakish Valentine Art At The Quin

It wasn’t planned as a celebration of Valentine season.

But given the visuals of graffiti artist Nick Walker’s new show in the lobby of The Quin hotel that’s a natural assumption, particularly as we zero in on February 14.

Love is in the Air.

Hearts appear as a motif, design reference, accent color and stand-in for the letter V (Vandal is a besuited, bowler-hatted character who frequents Walker’s work, as befits an artist who still scrawls on building exteriors).

And a deconstructed red heart tossed to the sky is the centerpiece of “Love is in the Air,” one of the celebrated English artist’s best-known images on view.

Walker’s rakish stenciled art is a smooth fit for the Quin lobby with its gallery-white walls, mile-high ceiling and imposing screen installation that gobbles up a wall and creates an instant collection of changing images.

Indeed, this is Walker’s second show at the Quin. In 2013 he became the hotel’s first

More Valentines from Nick Walker.

artist-in-residence shortly after it opened, creating 15 pieces for the Quin’s permanent collection. In addition to new abstract pieces, he’s showing a well chosen sampling of his greatest hits this time.

Missing are “Moona Lisa,” his cheeky take on the Mona Lisa, and “Le Corancan,” his mischievous Can-Can line of burkha-clad women, but you can find them in the artist’s monograph sitting on a Quin coffee table. They’re witty, but no one would call them Valentines, even accidental ones.

Nick Walker’s work will be on view at the Quin through February.

The Quin, 101 West 57th Street; 212 246-7846.