Lucien Gilson (AKA NOIR) didn't know it when Sony commissioned him to do a mural in promotion David Bowie's forthcoming album, but his work would end up becoming one of the more poignant images of the Starman after Bowie — who was secretly battling cancer — left Earth just two days after the release of Blackstar.
THE GIANTS WE LOST: MOURNING DAVID BOWIE + MORE
The 28-year-old from Liège, Belgium was contacted by the Belgian arm of the label at the beginning of 2016, and he spent two days creating the mural at a Brussels shopping center. He is largely recognized as the last artist to pay tribute to Bowie before his death. In the subsequent days, fans flocked to the artwork to leave messages for the pop culture icon.
"Some messages are so deep that you can feel the power of their emotions," Gilson, 28, said in a video.
A crowdfunding campaign helped him raise enough money to move the mural, since its time at the shopping center has come.
"About the removal of the mural, everything is going very well," he wrote in an update on Kickstarter. "The Shopping Center helps us in all matters concerning logistics and the artwork should be withdrawn in the course of December."
Gilson told CL that the restoration of the work will be done in January and exhibited in February 2017 in Belgium. He is preparing his first solo exhibition at the Mazel Galerie in Brussels in February. Afterwards he has plans to prep for murals in Belgium and Switzerland and is also looking for galleries in the United States.
Creative Loafing Tampa stumbled upon the images of the mural and asked if we could use it in our reflection on the music makers the world lost in 2016. Gilson was gracious enough to oblige, so CL Creative Director Julio Ramos adapted the images for our cover which you can see below.
Read our in memoriam post here.
This article appears in Dec 22-29, 2016.