Location: 100 E. 11th Street (back of VAPA building)
Artist: Matt Hooker and Matt Moore
Date: 2019
Media: Acrylic paint
Artist Info: @hookermedia and @puckmcgruff
Story: As legendary figures in Charlotte’s mural arts scene, Matt Hooker and Matt Moore have important murals all over the city and this was completed for TalkingWalls. Their work is featured in both Mad About Murals artwalks, and our artwalks in Plaza Midwood, NoDa, South End and Uptown. Stylistically, their work does not easily fit into one brand. Their work is highly adaptable to site, their personalities, and message.
Key Formal Elements:
So much is going on here. Based on a photograph of @alifeofclarity by @angelica.lobiondo, this portrait done in a black and white value scale celebrates strong women. The insertion of wolf eyes gives the portrait a fierce edge. Read the accompanying text on the mural and think about the message.
Location: 100 E. 11th Street
Title: "Ego"
Artist: Ledania
Date: 2019
Media: Acrylic paint
Artist Info: @ledania
Story: Internationally known mural artist Ledania is from Bogota, Colombia. She completed this mural for Talking Walls 2019. Her main themes of positivity, happiness, equality, love and self-expression are executed through vibrant colors and shapes.
Key Formal Elements:
Ledania gives you a self-help mural. Largely based on her own personal experience in Charlotte waiting on a wall to paint, she felt her ego getting in the way. What is pulling you down with your EGO? What can you do to cut those strings that prevent you from letting go of your EGO? As your self-help muralist, the artist wants you to let go of your ego and feel freedom. Have a good day!
Location: 801 N. Tryon Street
Artist: Nick Napoletano
Date: 2017
Media: Acrylic paint
Artist Info: @napoletanoart
Story: Funded with a Cultural Vision Grant from the Arts & Science Council which stressed building community and financial support from AerialCLT business owners, Nick Napoletano presents portraits of real women. This group of women is racially diverse and LGBTQ inclusive. The artist found his models with the help of Time Out Youth, a local organization that provides a safe space for youth and LGBTQ support.
Key Formal Elements:
Napoletano illustrates humanity in his hyper-realist portraits. The simple background of limited colors allows you to focus on the exceptional details in the portraits. Notice the modeling or shading of each of the faces. Find the highlights on each one and then begin to appreciate the many different shades of color represented in each face.
Location: 701 N. Tryon Street
Title: "Delight in Dancing"
Artist: Pichiavo
Date: 2019
Media: Acrylic paint
Artist Info: @pichiavo
Story: Two Spanish artists form the internationally known group Pichiavo. Their first mural in Charlotte is a commission for Charlotte Shout in collaboration with Talking Walls. The artists are known for their unique combination of classical art and contemporary urban street art. This Classical Greek goddess of dance Terpsichore comes complete with wet-drapery style clothing and a lyre (a musical instrument) in a contrapposto pose.
Key Formal Elements:
The artists have a distinct work style. First, a solid layer of color is applied as a base coat. On the large wall, the base color is blue. On the smaller perpendicular wall, the base color is pink. Next, splotches of additional colors are added, upon which the graffiti is painted. Site-specific simples, or bubble-style lettering, are added for this mural. Find some words that relate to this site. With the wall completely covered in graffiti, the artists then begin a delicate white washing of the form of the figure and add details that give the figure volume.
Location: 401 N. Tryon Street
Title: "Continuum"
Artist: Ben Long
Date: 1998
Media: Fresco
Artist Info: www.benlongfineart.com
Story: North Carolina native Ben Long was commissioned by the former NationsBank to create this fresco. The fresco painting method was known to the ancient Romans and was prevalent during the Renaissance. Fresco painting involves painting into wet plaster directly onto the wall and is ideal for creating murals. Long has several other fresco commissions in uptown Charlotte including the Bank of America Corporate Center, the CMPD building on Trade Street, and First Presbyterian Church.
Key Formal Elements:
Drawing on the traditions of illusionistic ceiling painting from the Renaissance and Baroque periods, Long uses heavily foreshortened figures and linear perspective to create the illusion of depth and an opening to the heavens. Individual vignettes or groupings of figures tell stories along the circumference of the dome. Can you find the self-portrait of the artist standing at an easel? Also included is a portrait of Hugh McColl, former chairman of the Bank of America and long-time patron of Long’s art.
Access to this mural is limited to weekdays since they enclosed the space around it.
Location: 328 N. Brevard Street
Artist: Wall Poems of Charlotte, Scott Nurkin, The Mural Shop
Date: 2015
Media: Acrylic paint
Artist Info: @wallpoems, @themuralshop
Story: Wall Poems of Charlotte is an effort to integrate poetry into urban areas of the city. The organization has completed over a dozen installations featuring the work of North Carolina poets. “Bus Stop” is a poem by Donald Justice, a Pulitzer Prize winning poet and educator who studied at the University of North Carolina. This installation was funded by the Knight Foundation with support from the building’s owner, Levine Properties. The Treolar House, as the building is known, is a rare residential building in uptown Charlotte. It was built in 1887 by a prominent business man who came to the area from England to work in gold mining.
Key Formal Elements:
Much of the writing by Justice centers around memory or reimagining the past in some way to make a connection. In beautiful language the poem invites the reader to linger for a moment. Imagine those “black flowers.” Engaging with this building, one of the few remaining historic structures in uptown Charlotte, encourages the viewer to both slow down, and to anticipate the future a block away at the light rail stop. If the poet was painter, he would be Edward Hopper.
Location: 225 N. Caldwell Street
Artist: elcompafino
Date: 2019
Media: Acrylic paint
Artist Info: @elcompafino
Story: Local tattoo artist @elcompafino was hired by the developer of the Brooklyn Lounge to paint this wall of the building.
Key Formal Elements:
The owners of this building intend to open a lounge and are taking the name of the former historic African-American neighborhood, Brooklyn, which was completely torn down during urban renewal in the 1960s.
Location: 225 N. Caldwell Street
Artist: Nick Napoletano
Date: 2019
Media: Acrylic paint
Artist Info: @napoletanoart
Story: Classically trained and educated both in the United States and Italy, Nick Napoletano works in Charlotte and cities all over the country. His work often features hyper-realistic portraits and communicates social or political messages grounded in humanistic beauty.
Key Formal Elements:
This is complicated. Originally, in my conversations with the artist, the artist intended to complete four murals based on Maslow’s Pyramid of Human Needs, a theory of psychology. Also, there was to be an acknowledgement of the past history of this site which included a tragic shooting in the night club some years ago. After a contract dispute (art is business too), only two murals were completed by Nick Napoletano. However, viewers are always thrilled by the details of human figures by Napoletano so enjoy these massive, moving, living figures.
Location: 301 E. 9th Street at Charlotte Lab School
Title: "Night Driving"
Artist: Wall Poems
Date: 2016
Media: Acrylic paint
Artist Info: @wallpoems, design by @cffrank, painting by @themuralshop
Story: Wall Poems of Charlotte is an effort to integrate poetry into urban areas of the city. The organization has completed over a dozen installations featuring North Carolina poets. “Night Driving” is a poem by William Matthews, an American poet who received his MFA from the University of North Carolina. This installation was funded by the Knight Foundation with support from the building’s owner, Levine Properties.
Key Formal Elements:
How important is the corner of the building here? Matthews’s poems are often described as understated and graceful and at only four lines that is true for this poem. His themes of life cycles and the passage of time are perfect for this corner location between a school and the light rail line. Why?
Location: Just past the 9th Street Station at underpass
Title: "Halcyon Idyll I and II and "Coexist"
Artist: Sharon Dowell
Date: 2018
Media: Acrylic paint
Artist Info: @sharon_dowell
Story: Federal Transit Administration Circular 9400.1A encourages the inclusion of art in transit systems. According to the circular, "Good design and art can improve the appearance and safety of a facility, give vibrancy to its public spaces, and make patrons feel welcome." In other words, design matters. For the Blue Line, up to 1% of design and construction costs was set aside to create public art. CATS Arts in Transit program hired artists as part of design teams and often the resulting art is integrated into the architecture.
Sharon Dowell painted five separate facades on the 11th Street underpass along the pedestrian trail and the I-277 underpass.
Key Formal Elements:
Dowell’s work revels in abstract and bold, colorful patterns. Grounded in realism and observation, the imagery here flows from architecture, construction, industrial sites, and plans.
While modern in design, Dowell actually uses a very old technique for transferring her design to the vertical facades. The “pouncing” technique was used by many Renaissance artists to transfer fresco designs. Most famously, Michelangelo used this technique for the Sistine Chapel ceiling. From a digital design, to-scale paper versions are produced, and holes are punched along the main design lines in the paper. Then the artist takes a small bag of powdered charcoal and lightly dabs at the holes so that the charcoal passes through the holes to create the design. Dowell then paints using the transferred designs.
Location: 618 N. College Street
Artist: Nick Napoletano
Date: 2018
Media: Acrylic paint
Artist Info: @napoletanoart
Story: In this super-scaled mural completed for Talking Walls, Napoletano features a female mural painter carrying her can of paint and a roller. She overlaps blue and pink painted dots arranged in a pattern similar to the Ishihara Color Blindness eye test. In the far-right corner, a man in a gray suit uses grey paint to cover up the mural. The site of this mural is important. In this area of town, many homeless congregate on the sidewalks and the parking lots. While he was painting, Napoletano spent time listening to their stories.
Key Formal Elements:
Napoletano’s mural is dripping with symbolism and message. As an avid supporter of women’s empowerment, the artist gives us a larger-than-life size woman artist as the heroine of this mural. How does seeing the woman artist impact your understanding of the word “Equity” written in the color-blind test dots? What do you think of the actions of the gray-suited man in the bottom right?
Location: 618 N. College Street
Artist: Gleo
Date: 2019
Media: Acrylic paint
Artist Info @gleo_co
Story: Street artist Gleo comes from Cali, Colombia and works internationally. She completed this mural for Talking Walls 2019. As an artist Gleo is interested in issues of identity, women, and exploring global social issues.
Key Formal Elements:
Identity. Where do we come from? How do we fit in? The artist fills her composition with sensuous, large flowers that surround the main focal point of the mural, the divided face. How does the divided face connect to the issue of identity?
Location: 105 East 5th Street
Artists: Matt Hooker, Matt Moore
Date: 2015
Media: Acrylic paint
Artist Info: @hookermedia, @puckmcgruff
Story: Look at that date! 2015. This is an early Charlotte mural. In one of the first murals completed by the duo of Matt Hooker and Matt Moore, this mural explodes with pictorial imagery related to the city of Charlotte. Hooker and Moore, or the Matts, as they are known, work all over the city with a style that is always changing and always engaging.
Key Formal Elements:
This mural is full of symbols. For example, the crown surrounding the bright yellow explosion represents the city of Charlotte’s namesake Queen Charlotte. Can you find one symbol from Charlotte’s past and one from Charlotte’s present?
** Note: Construction fences make access to this mural difficult.
Location: N. Tryon Street on side wall of Duckworths
Artist: Dammit Wesley
Date: 2018
Media: Acrylic paint
Artist Info: @dammit_wesley
Story: The artist Dammit Wesley is a community leader, social and political activist, and outspoken supporter of creatives of color. He is a founder of BlkMktClt, an artist's collective for artists of color. His art sheds lights on the black experience through the lens of popular culture. This mural was completed during the Talking Walls mural festival.
Key Formal Elements:
Without knowing at least something about the reference here by the artist, it is easy to miss the entire content of this work. At the top, “Strange Fruit,” written in bold green letters is a reference to the song of the same name performed by Billie Holliday. The song was based on an original poem written by Jewish-American Abel Meeropol which protested American racism, particularly the lynching of African Americans. Connect the figure and the words to determine the meaning of this mural.
Access to this mural is limited due to current construction fencing.
Title: “Count on Me CLT”
Location: 333 E. Trade Street
Artist: Lo’Vonia Parks
Date: 2020
Media: Acrylic paint
Artist Info:@lovoniaparks
Story: Count on Me CLT is a public service campaign created to help slow the spread of COVID-19. Working with Charlotte is Creative, they’ve commissioned various artists to paint windows with messages of social distancing, mask wearing, and reminders to wash your hands.
Key Formal Elements:
Artist Lo’Vonia Parks makes all of our frequent reminders to wear a mask, stand 6 feet apart, and wash our hands, more fun than we could ever know. Bright colors, lively patterns, and simple messaging bring these windows to life. Parks is a muralist, graphic designer and caricature artist and you can find a mural by her on our South End Gold District Artwalk.
Location: 301 N. Tryon Street wall along E. 6th Street
Artist: Rosalia Torres-Weiner
Date: 2019
Media: Acrylic paint
Artist Info: @redcalacastudio
Story: Artist and activist Rosalia Torres-Weiner is a native of Mexico and one of the leading mural artists and community builders in Charlotte. Her mural on the side of Discovery Place is a Charlotte Shout project curated by Talking Walls. With murals in NoDa, Plaza-Midwood, and South End, this marks her first mural uptown. The artist is known for her female subject matter, bold and colorful designs, and art as activism.
Key Formal Elements:
Torres-Weiner presents a colorful and decorated “Mother of Invention.” So many symbols are here to help you make the connection to both the location of the mural and her title. Some scientific symbols like the solar system and DNA helix iconography are combined with more mystical symbols like a dreamcatcher. What do you think this may suggest? Compare the two eyes. Also, look closely. Could there be a statement with the inclusion of “2020” and “46” in the bottom left corner?
Location: 301 N. Tryon Street side wall down 7th Street at Discovery Place
Artist: Alex DeLarge
Date: 2019
Media: Acrylic paint
Artist Info: @alexdelarge
Story: Alex DeLarge is one of the original founders of the Talking Walls Mural Festival in 2018 and a founder of the Southern Tiger Collective, a cooperative group of local artists supporting the street art scene.
Key Formal Elements:
Remember Marty McFly and Dr. Emmett Brown? Back to the Future came out in 1985 with its DeLorean Time Machine allowing for travel back in time. The fiery tire tracks and electrical currents that surround the car signify its landing at another time. The artist made one change from the original however. Here the license plate reads “704.” Do you know what the original license plate said? Also, how is this mural connected to its location?
Title: Flower Mural
Location: 151 Church Street
Artist: Natacha May Platt
Date: 2023
Media: Acrylic paint
Artist Info: @surfaceofbeauty
Story: Commissioned by Crescent Properties and WXLL Space, New York based, and nationally known artist Natasha May Platt painted a stunning mural along this parking deck wall. With close to 3500 square feet of flowers, this is the largest mural painted by the artist. She completed this huge wall in the space of about 10 days.
Key Formal Elements:
Take a minute to think about the challenges of painting a 30-foot-tall flower. And then add another 30-foot flower. For this artist, scaling up her work meant rethinking some of the steps involved in prepping her wall and executing her design. Rolling on background colors in a variety of hues gave her wall some depth and saved some time. Layering then with spray and then finally some brushwork allowed this artist to work efficiently on a huge scale without sacrificing any of her signature detail.