High School: Summer’s Where You’ll Find Me by Louise Jones (Art Card)

About the Artist

Detroit-based artist Louise Jones, also known as Ouizi, creates large-scale floral murals for public spaces throughout the United States, including museums and public parks. Her murals are inspired by the plants and animals that are local to the areas where she travels to create art. Georgia O’Keeffe is a big influence on her work.

About the Art

Originally commissioned by the NCMA as part of the 2018 exhibition The Beyond: Georgia O’Keeffe and Contemporary Art, Jones’s mural continues to “bloom” on the brick facade of East Building. It took the artist four days to create the mural by spray painting and painting by hand. The finished mural measures 48 feet tall and 24 feet wide.

Look Closely

• What is the first thing you notice about this work? Where do you think it might be located?
• How many different flowers do you see? Can you identify any of them? Have you seen any of them before? If so, where and when?

Discuss

• Public murals bring life to a community and reflect the community in which they are placed. To create Summer’s Where You’ll Find Me, Jones first collected flowers from around the Museum Park that were in bloom: southern magnolia, black-eyed Susans, Saint-John’s-wort, and swamp milkweed, among others. How does her mural celebrate its setting?
• Are there public murals in your school or in your community? What do these murals celebrate, communicate, or promote? Where do you think a good place might be for a mural in your school, and what message should it send?

Reflect

Jones has said that people often categorize what she does as graffiti because she uses spray paint. She states that her work is different because graffiti is technically unsanctioned. Do you agree or disagree with the artist?

Learn More

Read this short article on the NCMA website and visit the “Learn More” sidebar to find more information about the work of art and artist and find other works of art that relate to the subject matter, media, and techniques used by the artist.