Montrose (3 Views)
Part of the Houston Civic Art Collection and on permanent view at Bush Intercontinental Airport (Terminal D Gate 6), this triptych was commissioned by the Mayor’s Office of Cultural Affairs on behalf of the Houston Airport System for the George Bush Intercontinental Airport through the City of Houston's Civic Art Program and Houston Arts Alliance.
“Montrose (3 Views)” comprises three wall-sized works-on-paper created by stenciling vibrant pink pigment on enormous pieces of paper and then blowing the pigment away. Based on original photographs, each piece depicts Houston’s skyline as seen through plants and trees growing at three historically and personally significant locations in the city’s LGBTQ+ enclave, the Montrose: the former locations of Mary’s Naturally and The Copa, and the current location of Tony’s Corner Pocket. The largest of the three works also features a collage of images of street signs from the heart of the Montrose. Together the monumental triptych creates an exuberant and eye catching impression of the city that greets travelers as they pass through the gate.
This uplifting image of resilience celebrates facets of the city’s diversity and underrepresented cultural histories by highlighting the Montrose, the neighborhood that nurtured one of the country’s greatest, though least recognized, LGBTQ+ communities for over fifty years. The imagery suggests that the cultural diversity that thrives, sometimes unnoticed, in the nation’s fourth largest metropolis is as glorious a part of the city’s beauty as are the skyscraping monuments to the “Texas Miracle”. We used Montrose flora as the frame for these views to highlight the fecundity and wild spirit of Houston’s queer community that, like the plants that push through the concrete of a city built on wetlands, persists and thrives - organic and fabulous.
These drawings were created by stenciling dry pigment and on paper which we then blew away with the assistance of an air compressor. This act of erasure is also the means of impressing the pigment on the tooth of the paper, resulting in ghost-images that are present only through their removal.