The Utility Box Project is a multiple part, multiple site community artwork exploring Inglewood’s cultural achievements in the arts, entertainment, history and sports.  Original works by contemporary Black painters Rasta Asaru Escott EL, Patrick Henry Johnson, Mike Norice and Sam Pace were scanned and digitally modified to create eight motifs wrapped onto sixteen sidewalk-mounted electrical utility boxes. The artworks are mounted on city-owned boxes along arterials in each of Inglewood’s four council districts on sixteen locations across the nine square miles of the city.  The Creative House Gallery exhibited the original artworks in downtown Inglewood during summer 2024.

The Creative House Gallery is a non-profit fine arts exhibition and educational organization founded in Inglewood in 2016 by artist and community catalyst Rasta Asaru Escott EL.  The Creative House Gallery is an artist-led cultural center dedicated to helping the community transition, survive, develop and thrive through art access and art education.  The Creative House Gallery team curated, managed and completed the project working with the artists and with Inglewood company Signarama to fabricate and apply the vinyl wraps to the utility boxes. This project is the City’s first creative commission of an Inglewood arts business through the Public Art Fund.

Date: 2024
Collection: City of Inglewood Time-Based Projects
Locations: Ten locations, some hosting two wrappings; find all sixteen wraps!
Centinela at Florence • Centinela at Warren Lane • Centinela at Hyde Park • Century Boulevard at Prairie • Imperial at Crenshaw • Manchester at Kareem Court • Manchester at Market Street • Manchester at La Brea (SW corner) • Market Street at Florence (East side) • Prairie at 112^th Street