Photo courtesy of Ryan Pitkin.
Take our tour of the best murals in Charlotte to see profound, large-scale public art for free any day of the week.
On a Sunday evening in late July, more than a dozen artists and friends hung around an empty lot on South Brevard Street in Charlotte’s Optimist Park neighborhood. As they conversed with friends, many of those in attendance kept returning sporadically to one of the 8-foot-tall wooden canvases spread throughout the lot, running in width from 8 to 50 feet.
Though the grand opening celebration wasn’t scheduled until Sept. 14, this small group of street artists marked the official launch of the TAOH Outdoor Gallery, Charlotte’s first graffiti park.
Launched in partnership with the Piece for Peace Movement, Proffitt Dixon Partners, Art Walks CLT and local independent creatives, the TAOH Outdoor Gallery gives local artists of all stripes a place to practice their craft — be it spray-paint, sculpting, installations, chalk art or whatever they use to express themselves.
“Artists are trying to get into this genre [of street art], but a lot of artists don’t have the training or the opportunity to develop those skills or the space to be mentored in those skills,” said local muralist Osiris Rain, who spearheaded the project, in an August article by Queen City Nerve. “And I think that we have a demand within the market that can’t be satiated right now.”
Easily accessible by the CATS Blue Line, which runs right across the street from the Optimist Park lot, TAOH Outdoor Gallery will serve as a practice ground for street artists of all skill levels. The canvases will be in constant flux, as Rain said no artist should expect their new work to stay up longer than a week.
This not only provides artists with a new practice ground, but local residents with an ever-changing gallery to check out on their daily walks or as a stop on the Blue Line.
The opening of TAOH Outdoor Gallery got us thinking about Charlotte’s more permanent street art masterpieces, which led us to compile this list of 10 of the best murals in Charlotte for you to enjoy at any time.
1. “River of Life” by Abel Jackson
Neighborhood: Historic West End
West End Fresh Seafood Market, 2206 Beatties Ford Road
The title “River of Life” comes from an expression that appears to have been coined by Rev. Clifford Jones, pastor at Friendship Missionary Baptist Church, in a 1990 Charlotte Observer article written by Frye Gaillard about an attempt to rename a 3-mile stretch of Beatties Ford Road to Martin Luther King Drive.
In the article, Jones refers to Beatties Ford Road as “the river of life for the black community.” West End Fresh Seafood Market owner Bernetta Powell, who attends Friendship Missionary, heard Jones use the same expression during a sermon there, and it stuck with her, eventually inspiring the name of the artwork she commissioned on the side of her building.
In the mural, local artist Abel Jackson depicts six luminaries of the Beatties Ford Road corridor: Dr. Maxwell-Roddey, James Ferguson II, Julius Chambers, Hattie “Chatty Hatty” Leeper, Harvey Gantt and Sarah Stevenson. You can read more about each leader’s contributions to the neighborhood and the entire city’s history in this article by Queen City Nerve.
Photo courtesy of Ryan Pitkin.
2. “Wolf Eyes,” Matt Hooker & Matt Moore
Neighborhood: Uptown
VAPA Center, 700 N. Tryon St.; viewable from East 11th Street
Though Matt Moore is better known around Charlotte’s art circles by his nickname and Instagram handle, Puck McGruff, he may actually be even more recognized as one half of The Matts, a street-art duo that is responsible for some of the city’s most iconic murals, including this high-tech depiction of a woman with wolf eyes that greets anyone exiting the northeast side of I-277 into the city.
Created as part of the 2019 Talking Walls festival, the artwork mixes futuristic themes with a visceral feeling of naturalistic surrealism. Not far away, down Central Avenue, The Matts also partnered on the gigantic, five-story mural depicting Neptune looming over Plaza Midwood from the wall of The Nook apartment complex.
Photo courtesy of Ryan Pitkin.
3. “Tribute to Deborah Triplett,” Sharon Dowell
Neighborhood: Plaza Midwood
Stay Moxie, 2000 Commonwealth Ave.
Friends and fans of late Charlotte artist Deborah Triplett gathered in Plaza Midwood in May for the unveiling of Sharon Dowell’s mural, which pays tribute to the impactful Charlotte photographer and creative.
“I myself as an artist was touched by [Deborah Triplett] in my early 20s,” Dowell told Queen City Nerve. “She was such a force, I personally felt so empowered by her and she was just an inspiration for me and so many other artists that I know.”
Triplett, who founded Yard Art Day in Plaza Midwood, was a friend and ardent supporter of artists throughout the city. To celebrate and memorialize her passion for art and community, a team of local artists including Tom Thoune, Mike Wirth, Cher Cosper, Lucy Parker, Claire Santos and Rosalia Torres Weiner — all of whom shared a special connection with Triplett — created the vibrant mural in the hopes that it will serve as a lasting tribute and a focal point for the Plaza Midwood and Commonwealth neighborhoods.
Photo courtesy of Ryan Pitkin.
4. “Where Inspiration and Strength Blooms,” Sam Guzzie, Owl, and Kalin Renée Devone
Neighborhood: Uptown
Charlotte Convention Center, 501 S. College St.; viewable from the Light Rail Trail on East MLK Jr. Boulevard
The arrival of this beautiful 80-foot-high mural along the Rail Trail at the Convention Center in the summer of 2022 came with a bittersweet message from longtime muralist and Brand the Moth founder Sam Guzzie, who worked on the mural alongside fellow local artists Kalin Renée Devone and Owl. In an Instagram post titled “An ode to murals: The death of a profession.” Guzzie revealed that she would be leaving the medium due to health complications related to her fibromyalgia diagnosis five years previous.
In the heartfelt post, Guzzie voiced her love for the practice: “Not only did I thrive on the challenge of large scale painting, but I saw repeatedly, the positive impact on individuals, community and cities alike. And particularly in healing grief and loss, collective heartache. Murals have the power to inspire beauty in the mundane, offering the spark to ignite the endless possibilities of growth within our everyday,” she wrote.
“My excitement for murals and public installation, and my belief in their large scale healing potential, is genuine, to the core of my being. My eyes honestly light up over that shit. Public art is part of my identity, not just what I’ve done for work. It’s how I think, it’s the medium through which I first saw humanity outside of myself. And yet thoroughly an aspect of self.”
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5. “Mwanzo” sculpture & murals, Georgie Nakima
Neighborhood: Oak Forest
East Town Market, 5820 East W.T. Harris Boulevard
Long known for her recognizable geometric style featured on murals throughout the city, Georgie Nakima had her first go at 3D art when she took the role of creative director for Vision East Charlotte, a beautification and placemaking project at East Town Market, one of east Charlotte’s most bustling and diverse shopping centers.
The title is a Swahili word that means new beginnings, but Nakima had no intentions of leaving her old medium behind. There are two murals included in her work at East Town Market, as well as her high-profile work titled “Earth Keeper,” the first permanent mural installation inside Uptown’s Harvey B. Gantt Center for African-American Arts + Culture. She also has a 30-foot mural titled “Kindred” on the side of Atrium Health in the Historic West End, looking down on Five Points Plaza. Like all of her aforementioned murals, “Kindred” mixes themes related to powerful women with vibrant colors and geometric shapes.
Photo courtesy of Ryan Pitkin.
6. “Sisters,” Nick Napoletano
Neighborhood: Uptown
Aerial CLT, 801 N. Tryon St.
Created with consulting from local LGBTQ+ youth advocacy organization Time Out Youth, this vast 140-foot-long mural depicts seven real-life members of Charlotte’s LGBTQ+ community, all of whom represent different cultures and ethnicities. The women’s faces are connected by free-flowing ribbons, representing the interconnectedness of cultures that make up “the real Charlotte.”
“I just want [people viewing the art] to identify with the individuals as individuals and as human beings, that they are all equally valid,” Napoletano told CharlotteFive. “We are all people. Treat people like people.”
Photo courtesy of Ryan Pitkin.
7. “Hummingbirds,” Rosalia Torres-Weiner
Neighborhood: Clanton Park
SECU The Rise on Clanton, 575 Clanton Road
Once a flight attendant, Rosalia Torres-Weiner stopped flying after the 9/11 terror attacks and more passionately pursued her passion for art. Two decades later, she had become a self-proclaimed activist, raising awareness for social issues, including immigration, through her colorful public art pieces.
In 2022, she unveiled her “Hummingbirds” mural, a three-story piece of art on the side of SECU The Rise on Clanton, an 88-room hotel on Clanton Road that was converted into a fully furnished apartment complex for Charlotte’s chronically homeless residents. With one eye open and one eye closed, the woman at the center of the mural is meant to express, “I got your back,” Torres-Weiner told Charlotte Is Creative, while the hummingbirds hovering above the woman and the Carolina blue shades atop the mural show that the sky’s the limit.
Photo courtesy of Ryan Pitkin.
8. “Bloom,” Osiris Rain
Neighborhood: NoDa
NoDa Barbers, 3200 N. Davidson St.
When a work crew accidentally painted over one of local muralist Osiris Rain’s most popular works, facing out from NoDa Barbers onto East 35th Street, they feared they had lost an iconic mural that had served as an Instagram backdrop for countless visitors to Charlotte’s historic arts district. And yet, the community came through, as outcry over the accident led someone to recommission Rain to repaint the mural.
He kept many of the original mural’s themes, including the lotus flower that centers the work.
“Honestly, it’s almost a little poetic considering that the lotus mural and the icon of the lotus flower is symbolic of the neighborhood in the idea of growth and change,” Rain wrote on Instagram before he was commissioned to give it a second try. “So perhaps in a way, it was a small blessing and reflective of the nature of NoDa as a growing neighborhood. Thank you again to everyone for your messages of concern. I’m looking forward to creating another special mural for the neighborhood soon.” Right, he was.
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9. Luminous Lane, multiple artists
Neighborhood: Uptown
Curated by well-know Charlotte muralists Sydney Duarte and Treazy Treaz, who also helped launch the TAOH Outdoor Gallery described at the top of this article, Luminous Lane started as an art project tucked in an alley connecting East 3rd and East 4th streets between South Tryon and South College streets in January 2023, Luminous Lane has since grown into a thriving oasis of public art featuring murals, paste-ups, fiber art and more artwork from more than 40 artists.
Launched with a theme of “Bringing Light to Dark Places,” Luminous Lane is now one of Uptown Charlotte’s brightest shining stars.
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10. Camp North End, multiple artists
Neighborhood: North End
Once the home of factories where Model T cars were assembled and US Army missiles were built, the sprawling 76-acre of Camp North End has been transformed into a catalytic hub of creativity and ideas since first opening to the public in 2017. With numerous businesses, restaurants and other establishments located throughout the premises, there’s also dozens and dozens of murals spread throughout the campus, created by more than 60 artists including just about every one we’ve mentioned in the list above.
There’s no way we can even start describing the multitude of murals featured inside Camp North End, so maybe consider it a mural trail all its own.
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This article first appeared on Good Info News Wire and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.
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