Shields Green

Vaughn Davis Jr. is a St. Louis–based artist who expands abstraction through the physical undoing, reshaping, and re-forming of painting. Davis Jr.’s monumental painting, Shields Green, hangs in a catenary curve. This shape is the exact inverse of the Gateway Arch, which sits directly across from it. The piece is composed and cut to the proportions of the American flag and hung as a banner, rather than flown. It is shaped by history, by the presence of the monument, and in the artist’s words, by the concept of undoing idealism.

Shields Green will change over the three-month exhibition as it is exposed to sun and weather. The work is visible from both land and water, making it both an artwork and a navigational tool. Davis Jr. was inspired by Mary Meachum, an abolitionist who attempted to ferry enslaved people across the Mississippi River to Illinois and liberty in 1855. Davis references lines from the song “Wade in the Water,” which encodes navigational guidance for people escaping slavery, warning them to enter the water to avoid capture.

With support from The Hearthland Foundation.

Davis Jr.’s work is also currently on view at the Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis, as part of the Great Rivers Biennial, on view from September 11, 2026 to February 7, 2027.