N2EXISTENCE: A Public Art Initiative

The Luminary, with support from the STLMade movement, has launched a multifaceted art initiative with St. Louis-born visual artist Aaron Fowler. The 32-year-old artist, who works both in St. Louis and Los Angeles, returned to his native city to create the largest series of projects of his career and the first in his hometown. Opening in a season marked with personal loss for the artist and shared struggle in the community, Fowler is launching a six-month series of exhibitions and public projects: a community-centric, retail storefront on Cherokee Street, a two-part exhibition at The Luminary, and a permanent public art commission in North St. Louis.

The storefront, known as N2EXISTENCE, opened the series last weekend at 2834 Cherokee Street. The exhibit is focused on manifesting the dreams of Fowler's family, friends and communities throughout the St. Louis region. The name is a nod to words of encouragement—almost a mantra—that the artist’s grandmother has uttered his entire life: "You need to speak it into existence."

Fowler is picking up the practice of speaking a new future into existence, as an aspiration of hope, for himself, his family and his city in this moment of traumatic change. The storefront will be a space in which a growing group of creators from around the region who may not otherwise have access can try new ideas, present their work to the public and collaborate directly with the artist to create new works to share. Fowler hopes the project helps build “a movement to create cultural change, inspiring people to use their passions to manifest new realities of freedom.”

The storefront's first participant is fashion designer Tracy Petty, a lifelong friend of Fowler's, who will present designs specifically focused on the needs of Black women. She will also be working on a new nonprofit concept called Adriene’s Angels, dedicated to her mother who passed away from breast cancer when she was young. Creators will continue to rotate every few weeks through March 2021, ranging from podcast makers, shoe designers, recording artists and entrepreneurs in its six-month run.

The storefront opening will be followed by a two-part exhibition at The Luminary, a series of billboards by other area artists to be displayed throughout North St. Louis, and a mural – meant as healing gestures of connection and collaboration. Fowler is investing in conversations with community members about what they'd like to see for their neighborhoods and designed his project to address their concerns specifically. The mural, scheduled for next spring, will be located at Preservation Square, near 16th and Carr, where Fowler grew up.

Foundational to Fowler and The Luminary’s vision is the belief that art is not just a voice of its time, but also a means of building new futures. This project reflects the ambitions of the STLMade movement to deepen conversations on the St. Louis region’s collective future and collaboration as a key theme in moving the region forward.

The Luminary Curator Katherine Simone Reynolds notes that this project is unique in that “it is not a singular exhibition, it is a year-long conversation with Fowler on how to imagine Black Futures in our region.” This project follows the ambitions of one of St. Louis’s most profound artists, focusing on bringing new ideas, new connections and new futures into existence. The Luminary’s Executive and Artistic Director James McAnally states, “We think this is an ideal series of projects for our time, growing out of the pandemic and uprisings of this season into potential new paths forward grounded in collaboration, equity, and manifesting new visions of home and healing.” 

Aaron Fowler portrait courtesy of David WIlliams

About the Artist

Visual artist Aaron Fowler was born in 1988 and grew up in the city of St. Louis, and today spends his time between Los Angeles and St. Louis. He grew up in the Carr Square area and attended Florissant Valley Community College, ultimately receiving his BFA from the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts in 2011 and his MFA from Yale University School of Art in 2014.  His work has been exhibited at Seattle Art Museum (2020); Hammer Museum (2018); New Museum, New York (2018); Savannah College of Art and Design Museum of Art, Georgia (2017); Saatchi Gallery, London (2017); Beeler Gallery, Columbus College of Art and Design, Ohio (2016); Diane Rosenstein Gallery, Los Angeles (2016); Rubell Family Collection, Miami (2016); Studio Museum in Harlem, New York (2015); Flanders Gallery, Raleigh, North Carolina (2015); Thierry Goldberg Gallery, New York (2013); and Sophia Wanamaker Gallery, San José, Costa Rica (2012). He is a recipient of the Rema Hort Mann Foundation Emerging Artist Grant (2015) and was an artist in residence at the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture (2014).