To tame all of that asphalt, Candy Coated deployed an army of painters to coat the parking lot in shades of lime green, acid yellow, and fiery hues of magenta, fuchsia, and orange. Huge graphic elements break the space into different zones arranged on a green-yellow gradient: A border of alternating diamond shapes gives way to clouds of blue dots. More diamond shapes are arranged into crystalline clusters, and at the center is a huge “heart burst” of leaves and petals.

It’s a Candy Coated world and we’re invited to inhabit it.

As a magic carpet, the space is designed to both welcome and transport visitors.

“When you walk onto the carpet, you’re having the same experience as other people. It’s like this community defined,” said the Association for Public Art’s Penny Balkin Bach. The Association for Public Art commissioned Candy Coated’s work, executed in partnership with Philadelphia Parks & Recreation and the Fairmount Park Conservancy.

In explaining Magic Carpet, Candy Coated talks about the power of place and art to create positive memories, spreading beauty and deploying color to heal and stimulate the city, and seeking ways to make the experience of art accessible. Those big ideas are now embedded in a humble asphalt-parking pad.

“I wanted this to be a painting that people could be in and enjoy. Usually you’re not allowed to touch paintings, you’re not allowed near them… but since it’s outside you can be a part of it and get in it,” Coated explained.

The wildest part of Magic Carpet is a “totally out of this world” 3D painting of a crater that is meant to look as though a meteor crashed into Eakins Oval, revealing a subterranean world of pure light.

The 12-by-15 foot “crater blast” is the creation of Wasabi Design. It is an optical illusion that looks flat on the ground but appears 3D when viewed through a smartphone camera. (That part of the installation will begin starting July 16.)

This luminous illusion, Candy Coated said, will make it seem like “people can burst out of the center of the universe,” at least in photographic form.

That nifty 3D trick is also a way to help the artwork meet people where they are – on their mobile devices. (And so began the summer of a thousand Oval selfies.)

“There aren’t a lot of artists who could handle this, not just because of the scale but because of all the activity. It’s designed for the activities that the park wanted to retain and actually uses them in part of the design,” said Bach. “The program became part of the landscape for Candy to work with, which she managed to turn into many, many little advantages.”

Big blue dots become hopscotch swirls; diamond shaped sand boxes for tykes will boast pink sand. And everything from the banners, lanterns, stage wrap, umbrellas, and flags along the Magic Carpet will have a candy-coated palette.