Raleigh. The Journey & The Destination. is a digitally created public artwork designed for a signal cabinet at W. Johnson Street and Glenwood Avenue in Raleigh. Printed onto vinyl and installed on-site by a third-party vendor, the wrap transforms an everyday piece of city infrastructure into a four-sided visual story.

Each side draws from murals, paintings, and concepts I had originally created for different locations, then reimagines them through the lens of Raleigh’s nightlife—more specifically, as snapshots of the energy, movement, and people one might encounter in Glenwood South.

To unify the design, I incorporated the Raleigh skyline as a graphic element behind three of the scenes, grounding the piece in the city while also linking it to my own history there.

Recurring figures appear throughout the wrap, each carrying traces of earlier works. Flo’, for example, first appeared in my original painting Go With the Flow, which later inspired the downtown Raleigh sidewalk intervention titled Flo’ on Salisbury Street. She appeared again, with modifications, in my Movement mural for MoveOlogy in Clayton. In this wrap, she returns once more—walking the sidewalk and waving toward someone out in the street. On the opposite side, her partner, who also first appeared in Movement, walks on his own and waves in return, creating a visual dialogue across the box.

On the back side, a female motorcyclist references my own mostly solo, four-week road trip through 13 states from Massachusetts to Florida in 2009. During that trip, I passed through Raleigh to visit a friend years before moving there myself in 2014. That experience helped shape the title of the piece. For me, Raleigh was part of the journey, and later it became the destination. But the title also speaks more broadly: sometimes both the journey and the destination matter.

Facing the nearby nightlife and hotel scene, the front panel features the women from my first mural, originally painted at Imurj, a collaborative art space in downtown Raleigh. Their presence here felt especially fitting, reflecting the vibrancy, social energy, and colorful character of Glenwood South and the broader city beyond.

This piece is not only a reflection on my motorcycle journey and my move to Raleigh, but also on my journey as an artist, muralist, and public artist. It brings together imagery from multiple chapters of my practice into a single work. At the same time, the characters are open enough that others may see themselves in them. In that way, the piece is both personal and interpretive—rooted in my own story, while still leaving room for viewers to find their own.

What I love about this format is that public art can live on the overlooked surfaces of daily life. A signal cabinet is functional, but it can also become a place for color, story, memory, and recognition in the flow of the city.

Title: Raleigh. The Journey & The Destination.
Site/City: Intersection of W Johnson & Glenwood Ave., Raleigh, NC. 
Medium: Digital, printed to vinyl.
Dates of Design: January 19, 2023. Installation: June 9, 2023.