When travelers walk through George Bush Intercontinental Airport or William P. Hobby Airport, the hope is they’ll see Houston. The hope is, they’ll feel Houston. Ten colorful, contrasting and vibrant works of art, carefully and consciously created by Texas artists, detail the best qualities of the fourth largest city in the United States – diversity and inclusion. 

The works, commissioned by Houston Airports and the City of Houston in the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic, represent H-Town’s support of the art community and the unique stories each artist hopes to tell. The commissioned pieces unveiled and celebrated by the City of Houston in December 2022, are the culmination of Houston Airports Art Curator Alton DuLaney’s vision for the airport system’s art program. 

 “As the curator, I am playing to my audience,” said DuLaney. “At the Houston airports, that audience is literally the world. We serve, on average, one million passengers per week. The largest museum in Houston doesn’t get that many visitors in an entire year! So, the exposure for our artists and our program is unparalleled anywhere in the city.”  
 
The goal is Houston Airports is to deliver a 5-Star guest experience, for which the airport arts program plays an important role. “Many of our guests, who visit the airport on a layover, never leave the airport,” said DuLaney, “so we want to provide them with a taste of the culturally rich and creative talent that is the Houston art world.” 

A 20-foot-tall mural called Overlap in shades of blue provides a rich and meaningful guest experience as passengers make their way up and down the Terminal B Skyway at Bush Airport. The masterpiece was created by Xavier Schipani, an Austin-based artist who uses his voice and talent for trans-activism. As a member of the LGBTQIA+ community, Schipani shares with Houston Airports that he feels it is important to work for equal representation and visibility using his artwork as a tool, especially when executing publicly commissioned artworks. 

Overlap is inspired by the diverse and massive groups of travelers that pass through the doors of the Bush Airport. The artwork symbolizes the overlapping of one’s journey with another’s. The location, near the Terminal B Skyway Train, allows viewers the opportunity to interact with the art at different eye levels. Using this to his advantage, the artist chose to fill the space in a way that plays with ascending and descending perspectives. The composition also intends to abstract in moments where the monochromatic colors blend, creating a diverse fabric of people in transit. 

When studying Overlap, airport guests experience Schipani’s exploration of gender identity, proof of existence and the transformative power of representation. On his website, Schipani writes, “he focuses his attention to that proof of existence. He is a collector of history and imagery, piecing together writing, film, music and art within his community. He uses the figure as an anchor to guide storytelling as a form of mapping.”  

Schipani is one of the dozens of LGBTQIA+ artists included in the Houston Airports public art collection. Valued at $28 million and inclusive of more than 350 pieces, Houston Airports has one of the largest collections in the aviation industry.   

It takes an inventive mind and an inspired sense of survival to navigate cultural norms to find your true self,” he observes. “The world of art is a safe haven for many original thinkers and non-traditionals—not just the gay community. The world of art, television, film, and decor are realms of created realities. Similarly, each of us ultimately creates our own reality.” 

 DuLaney believes art will always be an important part of our society because the medium can mend gaps and spark conversation between groups of people. “There is always beauty in art - if we are open to see it,” said DuLaney. “Art can get you to surround yourself with beautiful people, places, and things.”