BUTTER 5 Artists Honor Black Stories on Canvas

by Mary Spiller

September 20, 2025

This year’s festival surpassed last year’s total in two nights, logging $143,000 in sales, including a $15,000 acquisition by Indiana Pacers guard Tyrese Haliburton.

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The fifth annual BUTTER Fine Arts Fair returned to Indianapolis over Labor Day weekend, drawing more than 10,000 attendees to the historic Stutz Building and highlighting the work of 50 Black visual artists from Indiana and beyond.

Organized by cultural advocacy group GANGGANG, the four-day event ran from Aug 29 to Sept 1. It brought together artists from Houston, Los Angeles, New York, London, and other cities alongside Indiana-based talent. This year’s theme of “remembrance” saw artists draw from Black history and community to create their pieces, bringing buyers like Tyrese Haliburton and John Green to the fair.

Since its launch in 2021, BUTTER has positioned itself as “America’s equitable fine art fair,” designed to dismantle systemic inequities by ensuring Black artists can showcase and sell their work without commissions.

This year’s curatorial team—Jacqueline “Jac” Forbes, Janice Bond, Malina Bacon, Alan Bacon, and Samuel Trotter—assembled the largest and most diverse exhibition in the fair’s history, expanding the scale, style, and price points of the works shown. The theme, remembrance, invited attendees and artists alike to reflect on culture, unity, and community.

Long-time BUTTER associate and self-taught artist FITZ has been working to improve year after year. Drawing from his cartoonist, surrealist, and pop culture influences, he’s been pushed to higher levels of innovation with his piece titled “Community Outreach,” which blends colorful textures with acrylic on canvas.  

FITZ explained, “It’s called Community Outreach. I really just kind of wanted to show, for lack of better terms, us serving our community; taking care of our grass,  taking care of our environment, watering our flowers, you know, enjoying our environment, and taking care of it.”

Paul Bacardi Smith, a Detroit-born artist who’s currently working in Indianapolis, said he embodied the theme of remembrance in his piece “Watermelanin” by drawing from the pain of the 2018 resurgence of Black Lives Matter in response to police brutality killings.

Smith told BLACK ENTERPRISE at the BUTTER festival, “I was upset about a lot of stuff that was happening with police brutality, things like that, like all the different killings and stuff. And I was just like, man, how could I voice my disdain toward what’s happening to black people? So I started doing a deep dive. And one thing I did was I started looking at historical images, and I came up with the drawing of the slave ships, right? And when I first looked at the drawing of a slave ship, when I looked at it, the first thing I saw was a watermelon.”

He continued, “It’s like a play on words. I’m from hip-hop culture, so it’s all about double, triple entendres. When people were being kidnapped or sent off [to slavery], they didn’t have many possessions. So what they would do is take watermelon seeds, put them in their pockets. So when they get to these new lands, they would throw the watermelon seeds on the ground. So there’s a statement that goes with that. They didn’t know we were seeds when they tried to bury us. This is a layered piece about the transatlantic slave trade. It’s about economics. It’s about reparations.

“And if you look here, it’s also about the commodification of Black bodies, right? Yeah, you buy a piece of fruit, you get what you want. You discard it. Same thing with people. They treat us like livestock. So, it’s so much layered into this piece. And when I painted it, I’m like, man, I’m going to rock with that.”

For the past five years, the fine arts fair has grown rapidly, from $65,000 in sales its first year to over $900,000 in non-commissioned art by 2024. This year’s edition broke records early, surpassing last year’s totals in just two nights, with $143,000 in sales logged, including a $15,000 acquisition by Indiana Pacers guard Tyrese Haliburton.

Haliburton purchased two works, one from Chicago artist Blake Lenoir and a second from Indianapolis artist Israel Solomon.The 25-year-old two-time NBA All-Star told BLACK ENTERPRISE that the passion was tangible while walking through the fine arts fair on opening night. 

“To meet all these people who have not just so much passion about the Indianapolis Pacers and this city, but also in their art, is really cool,” he explained. “It’s always cool to see people enjoying their passion. I think [BUTTER] is just immersing myself in the community. You can buy art from different places, but I prefer art with meaning, and I think that’s a really cool part of being able to come here and meet the artists and see all the artwork. Being able to get their stories means the world.

Other notable buyers included author John Green, who collected pieces by Houston-based artists Kaima Marie Akarue and Lovie Olivia, and the Art Museum of Greater Lafayette, which acquired Nanna’s Kitchen 2, 2025, by Kevin West. London artist Sonia Barrett sold seven works, while Indianapolis native Gary Gee, a five-time BUTTER participant, sold a record 34 of his hand-carved sculptural pieces.

This year, the fair carries more weight than ever at a time when artists nationwide face new political and cultural pressures.

Beyond sales, the event served as a cultural touchstone: 35 schools participated in BUTTER Education Day, and more than 360 creatives—including musicians like TI’s son Buddy Red, DJs, and photographers—were involved. To kick off the weekend, artist William Minion unveiled a mural of Haliburton at a local barbershop, honoring the Pacers’ recent playoff run to the NBA Finals.

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