When Troy Comardelle steps outside his apartment, one of the first things he sees is a sprawling blue-themed mural lush with flowers and wildlife.
He said it inspired him to be more adventurous with the decor in his own apartment.
“I just went with very bright primary colors and I have that very tall ceiling, … so I was able to put massive paintings up so it was just totally full of color and life,” he said.
The mural was created by illustrator Karen Sue Chen. Inside of Oak Lawn Place, art is plentiful. Turn a corner and you’ll find video installations, floral murals and photo walls.
The affordable, LGBTQ - affirming senior living center in Dallas opened last year, welcoming residents over 55 who earn less than a certain amount each year.
One of the few spaces of its kind in the country, Oak Lawn Place has also set itself apart by its focus on art that affirms and reflects its community.
Ted Kincaid is a visual artist and educator who helped create and curate much of the art at Oak Lawn Place. His contemporary visual art can be found across North Texas, including DFW International Airport and One Arts Plaza. He said he wants to challenge stuffy, outdated ways of using art in similar spaces.
“Oftentimes, art is just not high on the priority list, and certainly not on the budget. So many times, very cheap quality prints, cheap quality frames, very generic subject matters, are just regularly employed,” he said.
Instead, Kincaid said he set out to make a space “providing an atmosphere of joy, celebration, warmth, camaraderie, companionship.”
It’s an approach that he hopes other senior living facilities and health institutions can adopt.
That resonated with Cece Cox, CEO of the Resource Center, a nonprofit community center that has served the LGBTQ community for many decades. The Center owns Oak Lawn Place and brought together a group of people to give their input about the building’s design. Based on the feedback, she said that she hired Kincaid’s services through his company Anderson+Kincaid.
“I think art is such a universal language that even if you're not consciously aware of it, when it is around you, it does something to our human souls. So we have designed our buildings in such a way that we want to express that or have a backdrop in which people can feel that and express themselves,” she said.
Upon first walking in, visitors are greeted by four rotating cloud videos. Kincaid said the montage is meant to inspire calm among passersby who can decide what it all means.
“We always interpret how we will because we bring our own experiences to them. You may look at a cloud and see a bunny, and I might see Abraham Lincoln,” he said.
As residents walk to their apartments, they’re greeted by a grid of nine square photos on each floor of the building. Each photo wall is based on a different theme like activism, family and pride. They were sourced from a callout to the local queer community in North Texas including the nonprofit The Dallas Way, which has worked to archive Dallas’ LGBTQ history since 2011.
One photo wall in black-and-white includes shots of Dallas’ queer community members at the March on Washington in 1963. Kincaid said many of the original photos were blurry negatives, so he used AI to make some of the images clearer. He was able to enhance a photo of former state Rep. Harryette Ehrhardt, a powerful advocate in the LGBTQ community nicknamed “Fairy Godmother of Texas,” and other allies on a pride float.
“It was a very poor-quality photograph and we worked on that quite a while, and we were all really stunned with how wonderful it looked when we were finished,” he said.
Other notable art on each floor is the constantly looping video installation Oh Hello, I Didn’t See You There, a silent montage of more than 60 members of the local community including volunteers at The Resource Center, local drag queens and George Harris who, along with his husband Jack Evans, were the first gay couple to be married in Dallas County.
The idea is to depict North Texans experiencing everyday life, whether that’s chatting on the phone, sweeping or twirling by as they’re contrasted by seemingly mismatched green screens depicting a pasture or campfire. Kincaid says it’s intended to be “camp” humor, a style that’s had a long history in the LGBTQ community and meant to be over-the-top, ironic and countercultural.
“We wanted the backgrounds to be purposefully campy, sappy, funny. So we started looking for the worst stock footage we could find and the stock footage that really didn't go with the person who was on screen or went through it in such a way that it would make you laugh,” he said.
Karen Sue Chen is a muralist and illustrator who grew up in North Texas and was once a student of Kincaid’s in his high school art class. She was commissioned to create the vibrant mural designs that appear on each floor in a different color.
Chen said she created her murals with the hope that they would be warm and welcoming.
“A lot of the colors are brighter, and you want it to be uplifting for others. I would say the same with the peacocks and the floral. I hope it inspires other people to feel creative when they see these bigger murals,” she said.
For residents like Comardelle, it seems like it has, if the walk outside his apartment is any indication. He doesn’t see himself living anywhere else.
Before coming to Oak Lawn Place, he lived in the surrounding Oak Lawn area but said that he saw the neighborhood change and many of his friends leave due to rising costs.
Now, he says he’s found a sense of community and a space where he’s excited to host.
“I'm so proud of living here and it's just such a beautiful environment that people want to come.”
Arts Access is an arts journalism collaboration powered by The Dallas Morning News and KERA.
This community-funded journalism initiative is funded by the Better Together Fund, Carol & Don Glendenning, City of Dallas OAC, The University of Texas at Dallas, Communities Foundation of Texas, The Dallas Foundation, Eugene McDermott Foundation, James & Gayle Halperin Foundation, Jennifer & Peter Altabef and The Meadows Foundation. The News and KERA retain full editorial control of Arts
