By vp wright, Creator of “for the culture,”
Forward Times
https://www.forwardtimes.com/
Houston is a city that’s always in motion — people coming, going, grinding, rebuilding, and reinventing. But for the last three months inside William P. Hobby Airport, there’s been a corner where the rushing slows down. A place where travelers stop mid-stride, tilt their heads, and watch a Black man make meaning in real time.
That man is Jordan “J Lū” Lumpkins — New Orleans born, Prairie View molded, Houston claimed. A visual artist whose work doesn’t sit quietly on a wall; it breathes, shifts, and invites you in.
In his open studio, nestled between gate traffic and boarding calls, Jordan is creating a body of work centered on movement — not the kind measured in miles, but the internal kind. The becoming kind. The kind Black men often have to navigate alone.
People pass by and double back. Some watch for a minute. Some stay until boarding time. And Jordan meets them all with a calm that feels grounding.
“Here, I get direct feedback,” he told me. “People see the process. They see the growth. They tell me what the work brings up for them. You don’t get that everywhere.”
This isn’t just an airport residency — it’s a living archive of Black creativity: accessible, unguarded, and in full view of the world.
It also marks the next chapter of an artist Forward Times readers first met last year.
The Artist as a Mirror
Jordan’s presence is calm, quiet even — but his work is not. His canvases swell with movement, texture, and layered emotion. This new series, Taking Off, draws inspiration from flight — literal and metaphorical.
One of the central pieces, Taking Off 06, will soon be part of the airport’s permanent art collection.
“It’s an interpretation of a window seat,” he said as he walked me through the piece. “I love flying at night. It’s a time for me to reflect, rest… it’s liberating. When I travel — especially late — something about that space puts me in a different mental and emotional place.”
The texture is heavy and sculptural, with grooves that mimic unseen turbulence — the external forces pushing against us; the internal forces pushing us forward.
Jordan laughs when he mentions the exit-row reference: “I’m tall, so I need space,” he joked. “But also, that’s where I can think.”
And that’s the foundation of this series — thought, movement, identity, and the layered inner world of a Black man navigating the world with intention.
A Black Boy From New Orleans, A Man Becoming in Houston
Jordan didn’t plan for art to become central in his life.
“It’s been something I had a knack for as a young child,” he shares. “But basketball took up a lot of my time. Art was something I dabbled in… the creative bug was always there.”
As with many Black boys, creativity wasn’t nurtured the way athleticism was. Art lived in the margins. But life has a way of returning you to what’s yours.
“I started painting as an outlet,” he said. “Then I realized I found fulfillment in it.”
The layered nature of his work mirrors the layered nature of his identity:
“I come from a specific area, and I’ve got many interests. Athlete, creative — all of that informs my art. My work is layered because I’m layered.”
That duality — the structure of sports, the freedom of art — is visible in the discipline of his strokes and the looseness of his forms.
Houston as a Landing Place
After living abroad, Jordan found himself pulled back to Houston.
“I came back because my network was here,” he said. “Family, friends, Prairie View… it all just aligned.”
It was in Houston that Alton DuLaney — Curator of Public Art for the Houston Airport System and Chief Curator of Cultural Affairs for the City of Houston — discovered Jordan’s work. A colleague nominated him for the residency, and after reviewing his portfolio, DuLaney invited him to join the program at Hobby Airport.
“He extended the opportunity after seeing some of my work,” Jordan shared. “I thought it’d be cool… and it really has been.”
For a Black male artist, creating in one of the most publicly accessible art spaces in the city carries real meaning.
Art in airports reaches everyone — all classes, all cultures, all walks of life. And Jordan is using that platform to make the private act of Black creativity public.
From the prerequisite. to Taking Off
When Forward Times readers met Jordan last year, his exhibition the prerequisite. centered on the symbols Black boys inherit — the chains, the rims, the watches, the Tropicana mirages of wealth and safety. The show asked difficult questions about what Black success is “supposed” to look like and who gets to define it.
He reflected in that exhibition on “the imagery that populates the fantasies and minds of our youth,” interpreting them through the lens of capitalism, aspiration, and systemic pressure.
If the prerequisite. was a cultural critique, Taking Off is a cultural release.
It is quieter, more interior. Less about material symbols and more about emotional landscapes. Less about external expectations and more about internal expansion.
It shows what it looks like when a Black man finds room — literal and metaphorical — to stretch out, breathe, and create from within.
When Art Heals Without Trying
Jordan never sat down and said, “I want my art to heal people.”
But the people walking through Hobby Airport keep telling him otherwise.
“I’ve had folks say the work brought them back to a moment in their life… or helped them through something traumatic,” he said. “I don’t create with the intention to heal, but the work transcends that.”
And that’s the magic of intersectional creativity: Art made from a place of honesty becomes medicine for someone else.
Jordan’s open studio invites vulnerability from complete strangers — a rare sight in an airport, a rare sight in America, a rare sight for Black men.
His Message to Young Black Male Artists
When I asked Jordan what he’d tell young Black boys who want to create, he didn’t hesitate.
“Find your voice,” he said. “Lean into who you are, your experiences… and translate that into the work.”
Then he added the kind of wisdom you only get from someone who’s lived a lot of life across multiple identities:
“Don’t pocket yourself. Individuality pays dividends in this space.”
And finally, the practical side of his philosophy:
“Get the reps in. Create as often as you can. Watch your trajectory. It’ll be a beautiful story at the end of the day.”
A Story Still in Flight
Jordan’s story isn’t tied up with a neat bow, and he isn’t pretending it is. He’s in the middle of the work — the experimentation, the questions, the stretching. His Taking Off series is literally moving through him as he paints it, one textured layer at a time.
Soon, one of those pieces will join the permanent collection at William P. Hobby Airport. That’s a milestone worth celebrating — not only for Jordan, but for the cultural landscape of Houston. Public art by Black artists matters. Accessibility matters. Seeing ourselves in communal spaces matters.
But what stands out most isn’t the accolade; it’s the intentionality.
He paints like someone who knows representation isn’t decoration — it’s direction. It shapes what young artists believe is possible. It shifts the gaze. It opens doors that were once invisible.
So if you’re traveling through Hobby anytime soon, look for Jordan’s work and imagine him painting towards the skies.
And like any good flight, he’s just taking off.
You can follow Jordan at @jordan_retro on Instagram or explore more of his work at jlueart.com.
