Cross Thomas to side of Pizza Peel
Location: 1600 Central Avenue
Artist: Niki Zarrabi
Date: 2019
Media: Acrylic paint
Artist Info: @nikizarrabi
Story: Atlanta-based Niki Zarrabi painted this mural for Talking Walls 2019. Zarrabi, an Iranian-American mixed-media artist, works in both a smaller studio scale and very large outdoor mural projects.
Key Formal Elements:
- Green and reddish-pink hues work as complements
- Organic shapes
Make the Connection:
Zarrabi explores a type of vanitas or imagery that suggests the fragile and fleeting quality of life. She is also interested in portraying power in typically feminine images. What details of the mural suggest the idea of the transience of life? How does the artist use feminine subject matter to suggest power?
Walk toward The Plaza along Central Ave
Location: 1600 Central Ave on front wall of Pizza Peel
Artist: Darion Fleming
Date: 2018
Media: Acrylic paint
Artist Info: @daflemingo
Story: This mural is a part of the 2018 Talking Walls Festival, a week-long celebration of murals and street arts. During Talking Walls 2018, 17 artists live-painted murals across the city. Local business sponsors supported the effort and the artists with walls to paint.
Key Formal Elements:
- Outline and contour lines in the skeleton
- Limited palette – warm colors and the use of black and white
Make the Connection:
Darion Fleming is a young, talented artist who got his first start designing cans of beer for local breweries. He quickly moved to a much larger scale designing walls for Catawba Brewery and Divine Barrel. Here he shows the viewer the body of the snake but allows his snake to escape out of the frame of his mural. Does this heighten the awareness of this slithering snake or merely seem like a design decision? Or both?
Check out the medallions on HT
Location: 1704 Central Avenue
Artist: Tom Thoune
Date: 2013
Media: Mosaic tile
Artist Info: @tom_thoune
Story: This was the site of the original grocery store opened by W.T. Harris in 1936. This store was the first full-service supermarket, first air-conditioned store, and the first to stay open until 9 pm on a Friday. So many innovations! Harris merged with Teeter Food Market in 1960 to form Harris Teeter. Industrial art deco building design is featured as a connection to existing art deco buildings along the Central Avenue corridor.
Key Formal Elements:
- Texture
Make the Connection:
Artist Tom Thoune gathered pottery pieces from community members to make his mosaic medallions along the sides of the building. Each of the seven medallions references a different part of the grocery store. Make sure you see the bike racks designed by Shaun Cassidy for a nice art deco touch!
Walk to 1201 The Plaza
Location: 1201 The Plaza
Artist: Christine Dryden
Date: 2019
Media: Printed vinyl
Artist Info: @christinedryden.art
Story: Through a Placemaking Grant from the City of Charlotte, the Plaza Midwood Neighborhood Association and project manager Laurie Smithwick sponsored eight artists to cover traffic signal boxes in the neighborhood. Like the Amplify Charlotte project directed in South End, the signal wrap project takes utilitarian boxes and turns them into art. Beauty meets function!
Key Formal Elements:
- Polychromatic colors
- Abstract
Make the Connection:
Artist Christine Dryden uses a project with her students at Chantilly Montessori School as inspiration for her art. The collage project created images of Charlotte landmarks in the style of Eric Carle, the illustrator of the famous children’s book, The Very Hungry Caterpillar. Can you find a favorite place for pizza in the neighborhood, Fuel Pizza?
Look at side wall of Giddy Goat
Location: 1217 The Plaza
Artist: Darion Fleming
Date: 2020
Media: Acrylic paint
Artist Info:@daflemingo
Story: Giddy Goat Coffee Roasters couldn’t really have a fish mural on the outside of their new coffee business. So, they commissioned the artist who completed the former mural on this wall to create a new one. And boy are we glad. Artist Darion Fleming covers this massive wall with colorful, decorative coffee plant imagery but what really steals the show is the grey-scale close up of the hands holding the cup of coffee.
Key Formal Elements:
- Visual texture of the skin, wrinkles, hair on the hands
- Strong use of outline
Make the Connection:
How well do you know coffee?
According to legend, coffee plants were discovered by a herder who noticed his goats became more active after they ate the plants.
The US imports more coffee than any other nation.
The coffee bean is not really a bean. It is a seed. It comes from the Arabica or Robusta plant and its fruit, as you see in the mural, is rounded and red in color.
Over 400 million cups of coffee are consumed each day in the US.
At corner of Commonwealth and The Plaza turn right
Location: 2007 Commonwealth Avenue
Artist: Mike Wirth
Date: 2019
Media: Acrylic paint
Artists Info: @mikewirth, with @the_wizard_jeffries
Story: After the unexpected death of much-loved patron Jon-O, the Common Market asked artist Mike Wirth to paint a mural as a way to honor his memory and offer healing to his friends and community. Wirth reached out to a friend of Jon-Os and with the help of James, many who knew Jon-O were able to help with the mural.
Key Formal Elements:
- Symmetrical balance
- Grey scale of the figure
Make the Connection:
The life of Jon-O is celebrated in this full spectrum of color mural. From left to right, the colors create a rainbow of love. Unique aspects of the life of Jon-O from playing chess and cards to some of his frequent sayings floating in the paisley shapes, allow friends and family to remember his exuberant life.
Continue down CM Alley
Title: Common Market Alley Murals
Location: 2007 Commonwealth Ave
Artists: Charlotte Street Art Collab
Date: 2022
Media: Spray paint
Artists Info: @cltartsfx.machina
Story: CLT Street Art Collab is a local non-profit seeking to encourage and assist current and next gen artists to make a living as an artist. Various artists from the CLT Street Art Collab painted individual pieces on the alley wall and the back wall during a neighborhood arts festival. Make sure you walk the length of the wall to see all the various styles and the butterfly at the back entrance.
Key Formal Elements:
- Variety of all the bottles lining the wall
- Heavy use of outline
Make the Connection:
Common Market opened over 20 years ago and is now a mainstay in the PM neighborhood. It started as a “bottle shop.” So what better way to celebrate that than the parade of different bottles down the wall.
Continue through alley to Thomas Street
Title: Rocky & Bullwinkle Mural
Location: 1214 Thomas Avenue
Artists: Joey Obsoe, Rebus, This
Date: 2013
Media: Spray paint
Artist Info: @joeyobso
Story: Wow! Look at that date. This mural tells two stories. One of gentrification and one of nostaglia. The unique clothing store Boris & Natasha commissioned this mural on the side of their former shop. Once a stalwart of funky, weird, and uncommon, the shop was a main creative force in Plaza Midwood. In 2021, they moved their shop further out to The Plaza due to rising rents.
Key Formal Elements:
- Outline, outline, outline in the characters and letters
- Variety as organizing principle
Make the Connection:
With a connection to the name of the original shop, artist Joey Obsoe created a mural based on the 1960s Rocky and Bullwinkle show. The show features Rocky the flying squirrel (find him in the mural) and Bullwinkle the Moose. Rocky and Bullwinkle are forever being chased by Russian spies Boris & Natasha. The main characters pop up in the mural amidst graffiti lettering in a celebration of street art.
Cross Commonwealth, Walk to Okra Yoga
Location: 1912 Commonwealth Avenue, side wall of Okra Charlotte yoga studio.
Artists:
Date: 2018
Media: Acrylic paint
Artist Info: @dr.rickamortis, @you_are_jah
Story: The artists created a mural with the quote, “Before I die, I will live” on one side and a meditating seated figure on the other.
Key Formal Elements:
- Symmetrical balance of the seated figure in the circle
- Line – traditional use of outline in wild-style letters along the side
Make the Connection:
The meditative figure is cleverly arranged around a pipe on the exterior on the building. The locations of the seven chakras of the body are depicted vertically down the pipe. Chakras are various points in the body used in ancient meditation practices. What other imagery connects this piece to the yoga studio and wellness center?
Walk to Pecan, cross to side wall of Smooth Monkey
Location: 1801 Commonwealth Avenue
Artist: Ashley Graham
Date: 2018
Media: Acrylic paint
Artist Info: @grahamarts
Story: Playful, fun monkeys and luscious fruit flow around two sides of the Smooth Monkey smoothie shop. Ashley Graham is a local art instructor and has murals in several other locations around the city.
Key Formal Elements:
- Highlights present on the fruit
- Warm colors of the bananas and the oranges contrasts with the cool colors of the blueberries and raspberries
Make the Connection:
Notice how the monkeys are rendered in a greyscale, or the use of only black and white. Think about how that choice by the artist impacts how you encounter the other parts of the composition.
Walk to corner of CW & Thomas. Turn left and enter alley
Title: Petra’s Mural
Location: Alley behind 1919 Commonwealth Ave
Artist: Hnin Nie
Date: 2023
Media: Acrylic paint
Artist Info:@hninstagram
Story: Petra’s Bar supports local artists with a lot of opportunities to showcase their art and Hnin Nie had her first solo exhibit there. Nie is a young and talented painter and mixed media artist with other murals in NoDa and Optimist Park. Her playful colors and fun imagery explore themes of identity, femininity, and invite you to delight in your everyday world.
Key Formal Elements:
- Sharp, flat areas of color
- Organic shapes
Make the Connection:
Check out the friends hanging out at the bar but they are green, pink, and yellow. In her signature fun shapes with added human characteristics, Nie shares her experiences of dancing and having fun with her group of friends. Which friend are you?