In Stamford, is someone 'trapped' inside a clock? No, it's art.

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The Real Time Clock art installation by Dutch artist Martin Baas is unveiled atop the Urby apartments in Stamford, Conn. Tuesday, May 23, 2023. The art piece is a projected video depicting a person spray-painting the hands and numbers of the clock to keep time.

Urby founder and CEO David Barry and Stamford Mayor Caroline Simmons unveil the Real Time Clock art installation by Dutch artist Martin Baas is unveiled atop the Urby apartments in Stamford, Conn. Tuesday, May 23, 2023. The art piece is a projected video depicting a person spray-painting the hands and numbers of the clock to keep time.

Stamford Mayor Caroline Simmons and Urby founder and CEO David Barry unveil the Real Time Clock art installation by Dutch artist Martin Baas is unveiled atop the Urby apartments in Stamford, Conn. Tuesday, May 23, 2023. The art piece is a projected video depicting a person spray-painting the hands and numbers of the clock to keep time.

Urby founder and CEO David Barry unveils the Real Time Clock art installation by Dutch artist Martin Baas is unveiled atop the Urby apartments in Stamford, Conn. Tuesday, May 23, 2023. The art piece is a projected video depicting a person spray-painting the hands and numbers of the clock to keep time.

Stamford Mayor Caroline Simmons unveils the Real Time Clock art installation by Dutch artist Martin Baas is unveiled atop the Urby apartments in Stamford, Conn. Tuesday, May 23, 2023. The art piece is a projected video depicting a person spray-painting the hands and numbers of the clock to keep time.

STAMFORD — The figure standing in the middle of a new art installation in downtown Stamford is working around the clock.

Literally.

Graffiti artist Adele Renault became a part of Stamford's skyline Tuesday afternoon, as the main character of an art piece that was unveiled on the Urby apartment building.

In the installation — a round 10-foot-diameter flat structure with a bright yellow ring around it, and a screen in the middle — Renault's figure is visible through a translucent display and she is shown spray-painting numbers onto the screen to resemble a clock face, and drawing hands to represent the hour and minutes of that clock.

The display gives the impression that Renault is trapped inside the timepiece. Every 24 minutes, a second figure appears and washes the graffiti away, only for Renault to start all over. The clock display is taken from a 12-hour video of Renault physically acting out the entire piece that was shot at the art studio of Dutch designer Maarten Baas, who created the art installation.

The clock times Renault displays match the real local time, meaning the piece works as both art and a functional clock.

"My team jokes that I'm always late so I'm hoping this clock will keep us on time," said Mayor Caroline Simmons, drawing laughs from a crowd who gathered to witness the unveiling from the outdoor terrace of 201 Tresser Boulevard, the headquarters of Purdue Pharma.

The Stamford clock is the latest in a series Baas created titled "Real Time."

The series was launched in 2009 in Milan with a piece known as "Sweeper's Clock," in which an overhead camera shows two men in overalls sweeping a pile of trash into two lines to represent a clock's hands, moving the pile every minute to match the time.

Perhaps the most famous piece in the series is the one that hangs at Amsterdam's Airport Schiphol, which depicts a person drawing the hands of a clock every minute, much like in the Stamford piece.

Baas' Stamford clock officially came to life at 4:41 p.m. atop the six-story Urby complex, which is at the corner of Greyrock Place and Tresser Boulevard.

"It's this dramatic, dynamic art piece that just goes and goes and goes," said David Barry, founder and CEO of Urby. "So you can watch it for really minutes or hours and see this play out. We think it's fun and we're really proud to have done it and brought it to this town."

Stamford Urby is comprised of 11 connected buildings of different heights assembled around a central green courtyard.

"We designed this clock so that it could be appreciated by the public — even perhaps on the highway, and really like a centerpiece of that corner and something to anchor this building and make it memorable," Barry said.

Baas was not in attendance for the event, but the designer and creator of the clock explained the piece through a press release.

"Graffiti is edgy and creative, but it is also temporary, like everything we do," Baas said, in the release. "It has to be quick and powerful because it can be gone in a minute. The biggest enemies of graffiti are officials who decide to have it scrubbed. We played off that by having someone come in every 24 minutes with a high-pressure hose to wash it all away, causing Adele to start over."

The Dutch artist said he wants the art piece to be accessible even to those who aren't art aficionados.

"I hope that it will appeal to people who don't know anything about art or design, as well as those who are serious about it, from children to museum directors," Bass said.