PHOTOGRAPH PROVIDED BY VINCE FRASER
Despite working in the creative industry since the 1990s and a CV that includes exhibition design for IBM, Apple, Nike, and MTV, Vince Fraser just now feels like patting himself on the back. The London-based digital illustrator created artwork for Erykah Badu’s 2023 #UnfollowMeTour and for South African deejay/producer Black Coffee’s recent club residency in Ibiza, Spain. Fraser’s long-running immersive Artechouse installation, “Aṣẹ: Afro Frequencies,” has been displayed in Miami, New York, and Washington D.C. and is currently in Sweden. He’s at a place where his work is in demand globally, but it took years of effort.
“When I first started out, way before all of this AI stuff and as a freelance digital artist, it was very difficult,” Fraser reflects over a Zoom call from London. “When you are a Black artist—whether you’re in London or whether you’re in the US, it’s not easy. There were very little opportunities—I’m talking, like, the late ’90s, early 2000s, when I was doing a lot of freelance work for editorial companies, for marketing agencies, advertising agencies—you’d have to pitch for work and there would be maybe 100 people pitching for one job. And you might get down to like the last ten or five and then you still don’t get it.”
Fast forward a generation later: Fraser’s “Aṣẹ: Afro Frequencies” posts on his Instagram page caught the attention of recording artists like Big Boi and Usher. They also resonated with fellow multi-disciplinary artist and Cincinnati native Napoleon Maddox, who put BLINK, the local biennial light and art festival, on Fraser’s radar.
PHOTOGRAPH PROVIDED BY VINCE FRASER
“We connected before the previous BLINK about four years ago,” Fraser recalls. “He sort of said, ‘You know, I love what you’re doing.’ He saw my Aṣẹ: Afro Frequencies exhibition and said, ‘We have this festival in Cincinnati, and it’s the biggest light show in the U.S., and we have it like every two years. Would you be interested?’”
Fraser then created the “Little Africa” projection mapped installation and headlined Maddox’s UnderWorld Black Arts Festival with Jarobi White of A Tribe Called Quest in 2022. Using hip hop culture with images of ships and African masks as a present-day statement of liberation, “Little Africa” was inspired by the Cincinnati pre-Civil War Black settlement that was located at the central part of the riverfront.
“It was a nod to that, but also to kind of give it my own spin as well, because my work is much more sort of around surrealism, Black surrealism,” Fraser explains. “I tend to take things in time and kind of give it my own spin, so to speak.”
Fraser returns to BLINK with his wall projection installation, “CincinnAI-tus,” which will appear on abstract painter Richard Haas’s seven-story mural, “Homage to Cincinnatus,” on Central Parkway overlooking Over-the-Rhine. Fraser says his intent with “CincinnAI-tus” is to add another dimension to the existing mural using the latest AI technology to turn the static image into an immersive experience.
“It’s all really to do with what I’ve been exploring over the last couple of years, which has been much more AI based work,” Fraser explains.
Originally, Haas was commissioned by The Kroger Co. in 1983 to paint a mural for its 100th anniversary. Named for Roman ex-general and farmer, Lucius Quinctius Cincinnatus, the illusory mural’s columns and staircases almost appear three-dimensional to those passing by. In a 2015 Cincinnati Edition interview, Haas explained why he chose Cincinnatus as the subject of his mural on the north-facing side of the Brotherhood Building.
“I’d looked into the history a little bit and realized that Cincinnati had a unique history in how it was named, and that it had this unusual moment around 1800, slightly before, when George Washington started the Society of the Cincinnati,” Haas told WVXU. “His idea, of course, was that he was modelling himself after Cincinnatus, who was a farmer who turned general, saved Rome then retreated back to the farm—and that’s how he wanted to envision himself—he wanted to save society, and I think Cincinnati picked up on that.”
Compared to his 2022 “Little Africa,” the central location of Fraser’s “CincinnAI-tus” at Central Parkway and Vine Street puts the installation center stage for BLINK visitors to experience. “I had a chat with the festival director, Justin, and he was like, ‘Vince, we need to kind of get you into a more sort of prime spot,’” he says.
As for his interpretation of “Homage to Cincinnatus,” Fraser hints it won’t be through Black surrealism—it will be his style but “slightly different.”
“It isn’t sort of something which I tend to do with most of my recent works, where it’s much more related to my culture and my background, so this is a little bit more general speaking,” he says.
BLINK Festival runs Thursday, October 17-20 throughout downtown, Over-the-Rhine, and Northern Kentucky and is illuminated by ArtsWave. Find out more about the BLINK schedule here and more about participating artists here.
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