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Tower Grove Connector I-44 Artist Concepts

Please take a moment to review each artists’ concept design and share your thoughts.

Please review each artists’ concept designs and share your thoughts. Your comments will be shared with the I-44 Overpass Art Selection Committee. As you review, consider:
  • How does the concept create a sense of welcome and reflect the character of the community?
  • What makes the concept visually compelling, engaging and unique?
  • What other strengths or weaknesses do you see in the concept?
1. Your zip code: *This question is required.
2. Districts Illuminous, AJ Davis and Jeremy Freiboth
Districts Illuminous is an immersive sculptural, mural, and lighting installation designed to transform the Tower Grove Connector underpass into a beacon of welcome, safety, and belonging. By activating this vital corridor with light and form, the project will unify the surrounding neighborhoods and invite residents, commuters, and visitors alike to experience the space not as a barrier, but as a connective passage between communities.

At the symbolic heart of the installation are nine sculptural windows, each dedicated to a neighborhood or district along the Connector. Inspired by the history of stained glass as both a storytelling and communal art form, these sculptural portals distill the identity of each neighborhood into iconic motifs. These windows act as luminous gateways into the character of each district, reminding viewers that each neighborhood contributes a vital piece to the mosaic of St. Louis’ cultural fabric.

The thirty mural-painted columns further root the installation in its ecological and cultural context. Each column features abstract floral motifs evoking the kinship between Tower Grove Park and the Missouri Botanical Garden. These vertical “living gardens” of color soften the infrastructure of the underpass and symbolize the organic connections between past and present, nature and city, and community and environment.

At its heart, the project affirms the role of public art as both mirror and bridge: reflecting the stories of the city while connecting its neighborhoods into one luminous whole. Please select one of the following images.
4. Tree Huggers (Tower Grove), Ekene Ijeoma
Tree Huggers (Tower Grove), is a site-specific hyper realistic mural that transforms the 30 concrete columns of the I-44 Overpass into indigenous tree trunks embraced by local community members. This work is the foundational piece for an intended national series and is conceived as an "Ode to Green Spaces and their Communities."

The artwork functions as a catalyst for urban connectivity. By visually transforming this major piece of civic infrastructure, the mural converts the entire underpass environment into a portal that symbolically links the green spaces and residents it serves. This fosters social cohesion and shared ownership, contributing to the project's goal of activating the streetscape and transforming a transitional zone into a safe, welcoming public space.

The participatory process involves casting 30 models, who will be interviewed about their personal relationship to the local ecology while being photographed. These photographs and conversations will be archived in a forthcoming book. The columns feature indigenous species—Flowering Dogwood, Eastern Redbud, Shumard Oak, and American Elm—reflecting a unified place identity rooted in the local ecology. The figures embracing the columns symbolize our symbiotic relationship with nature—a mutual pact of care and stewardship. Please select one of the following images.
6. Flight Patterns, Ivan Toth Depeña
This artwork is inspired by the confluence of land, air, and movement—a nod to the Mississippi Flyway, where, each season, birds trace invisible paths across the sky. Beneath this passage, the underpass becomes a reference point, a place where these patterns leave their echoes.

Contour lines sweep across the structure, flowing like air currents, wrapping walls, columns, and ceilings in rhythmic layers. These forms speak a dual language: they follow the migratory arcs overhead and the topographic contours underneath, linking sky to earth in a single continuous gesture.

Currently rendered in a palette of greens reinforcing the site’s botanical identity while emphasizing the relationship between built environment and ecological systems. By merging abstracted movement with environmental context, this installation transforms a transitional space into a welcoming environmental gateway—one that reflects the natural rhythms of St. Louis’s surrounding landscape and ecological heritage. Please select one of the following images.
8. I'm interested in staying informed about the Tower Grove Connector public art project (optional).
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