Perseverance
211 W Fort St. Detroit, MI
December 2021
Perseverance is a painting I created for Foster Financial. They commissioned me to create a statement piece for the lobby of 211 W. Fort St.
I had the pleasure of working with Pence Fine Art Services on this project. They built me a massive 12' by 18' wood panel (three 12' x 6' panels stitched together), which was the panel they've ever built and my largest painting made to date.
It took 4 humans to move this bad boy into place, and a small army to hang it. I'm very grateful for the construction team that was working on the site who mounted this beast onto the marble wall.
Once the panel was hung, the seams were patched to smooth out the surface, and then prepped for me to paint. I got started by leaving an Easter egg in the painting that felt true to my aesthetic yet provided a connection to the place.
As you can see, I generally work from left to right, but it just all depends on the project. This guy moved from top left to bottom, then across the panel both from the top and bottom.
This photo isn't very helpful visually describing process, but I like it. Sorry not sorry :)
It was pretty fun to have Brad drop by from Foster Financial to catch the last bit of me painting, and see the work as the paint was still wet.
Crazy random connection with this project: Doug (from Foster Financial) reached out to me to paint this piece, and it just by chance was completed on the day of his birth.
As some of you may know, I'm slightly obsessed with modernism. From architecture to furniture, it's all my jam. So creating a work that's integrated into an International Style building (the same style that Mies van der Rohe championed), was extremely special for me.
And to put a cherry on top of the project, you can see Fort Street Galley (FSG) from the entrance of this building. FSG was the home of my very short lived restaurant Pursue.
It was a monumental achievement for me and even more crushing blow when my year contract with them was cut short. It's a long story, and I won't get into all of it here, but kiddy corner to a place that was such a public failure (the Free Press covered my closing) for me now lives a triumph of a painting that can be viewed from the same street as the now shuttered FSG.
Thank you Doug, Brad, and Foster Financial for trusting me to create such a monumental piece of art that has transformed a small part of Fort Street and a big part of my heart.