South End Interactive
Discover South End Interactive. Scan a QR code with your smart phone camera and watch a video of the artist, generate site specific face filters, and explore a 3-D model of the artwork. This project is a partnership with South End, AVO Insights, and ArtWalks CLT.
For face filters, turn your camera on selfie mode.
Start at 307 Lincoln Street in the Gold District
Location: 307 Lincoln Street in the Riva Finoli Passage
Artist: Lo’Vonia Parks
Date: 2019
Media: Acrylic paint
Artist Info: @lovoniaparks
Story: This mural is sponsored by Brand the Moth and their META Mural Artists Residency Program. Brand the Moth is a non-profit organization creating community based public art projects and supporting emerging artists with the META residency opportunity. Lo’Vonia Parks is an artist from their inaugural residency program. Parks is a graduate of the Savannah College of Art & Design and makes the transition from a caricature and illustration career into her first mural.
Key Formal Elements:
- Strong use of contour line and outline in the face
- Implied line of the light bulb and his line of sight
Make the Connection:
Meet Thomas Edison. The artist portrays Edison who came to Charlotte in 1890 after the discovery of gold. It was thought that gold may be mined through the use of electricity. While Edison did not end up using his invention for gold mining, he did work with the developers of Dilworth to create Charlotte’s first electric streetcar. What symbols of the streetcar can you find in the mural? What symbols tell of the connection to gold mining?
Walk through alley to back wall of 332 W. Bland
Title: “Stronger Together”
Location: 332 W. Bland Street
Artist: Georgie Nakima
Date: 2020
Media: Acrylic paint
Artist Info: @gardenofjourney
Story: Charlotte Center City Partners commissioned artist Georgia Nakima to paint a mural on this prominent corner in South End. Nakima has murals on the East Side and West End, but this is her first mural in South End. She also completed one of the letters in the Black Lives Matter mural uptown.
Key Formal Elements:
- Balanced use of warm colors of oranges and cool colors of blues
- Geometric shapes
** As of 8/20, the sign with the QR code is removed but will be replaced soon.
Make the Connection:
Nakima is inspired by traditional African patterns and textiles and she often creates fierce, strong women figures. The two figures seek out your gaze and both gaze back intently.
Turn left on Bland, walk to Tryon
Location: 1411 S. Tryon Street
Artist: Matt Hooker, Matt Moore
Date: 2020
Media: Acrylic paint
Artist Info: @hookermedia, @puckmcgruff
Story: Matt Hooker and Matt Moore, arguably the most prolific and well known of our hometown muralists, completed this mural for the Brickyard, a popular pub in South End. If you weren’t a fan of the Buffalo Bills murals on the left, then now you have a new mural to cheer for on game day.
Key Formal Elements:
· Symmetrical balance
· Highlights everywhere
Make the Connection:
LUUUUUKE! Luke Kuechly, Carolina Panther’s linebacker, No. 59, youngest recipient of the NFL Defensive Player of the Year Award, retired from football in January 2020. As Charlotteans went into collective mourning, the Brickyard owner knew what to do. Over about a 3 to 4 day span, the Matts started painting, fans stopped by, and then even Luke Kuechly stopped by for a visit. The perfect way to say thank you and #KeepPounding.
Walk to Rail Trail, walk right for one block
Title: "Home Away from Home"
Location: 1507 Camden Road
Artist: Naji Alali
Date: 2020
Media: Acrylic paint
Artist Info: @najiarts
Story: This mural is sponsored by Brand the Moth and their META Mural Artists Residency Program. Brand the Moth is a non-profit organization creating community based public art projects and supporting emerging artists with the META residency opportunity. Naji Alali is an artist from their second residency program.
Key Formal Elements:
- Strong use of outline
- Primary colors of blue, red, yellow
Make the Connection:
Home can be anywhere. Alali’s message in this six-paneled mural is an homage to home and belonging. In his upper panels, the artist depicts grandparents as a suggestion to honor our ancestors. Objects, photos, and submissions from friends are compiled together to create the middle windows. And lastly, the artist includes items from his own home in Charlotte and his family’s home in his home country of Jordan. What single object in your home would you have painted in a mural?
.jpg/:/)
Keep walking along Rail Trail
Location: 1537 Camden Road
Artist: Matthew Willey
Date: 2019
Media: Acrylic paint
Artist Info: @thegoodofthehive
Story: Internationally known artist Matthew Willey painted this mural on the light rail facing side of Flower Child. This mural is part of his The Good of the Hive initiative which creates awareness about the importance of honey bees to our collective planetary health.
Key Formal Elements:
- Organic Shapes
- Implied motion
Make the Connection:
Willey is on a quest to paint 50,000 honey bees. 50,000 is the number of bees required to maintain a healthy hive. Willey started this act of gentle activism five years ago and he has painted over 5,000 bees so far.
Keep walking along rail trail
Location: 118 E. Kingston Avenue at Dilworth Artisan Station
Artist: Mike Wirth with Arko and Drew Newpher
Date: 2021
Media: Acrylic paint
Artist Info: @mikewirth, @arko.clt, @anewpher89
Story: Developer White Point Partners commissioned artist Mike Wirth to paint three walls of the building located at the Dilworth Artisan Station. Wirth is a community muralist, founder of the Talking Walls Mural Festival, and design faculty at Queens University. He worked with Arko and Drew Newpher for over a month painting this enormous project. 300 gallons of paint and primer, over 100 hours, many breaks to stop and talk to passers-by, and South End has an incredible new addition to the neighborhood.
Key Formal Elements:
- Scale makes the first impression
- Highly saturated pops of color make this mural stand out
Make the Connection:
This mural is all about history. Let’s start on the parachute side. The Dilworth Artisan Station building was one of the original mills located in the South End area. During WWI, the mill converted to making parachutes for the war effort. Find the landing zone and snap your photo so that you “nail your landing.” On the rail trail side, bottles of pop and gas bubbles celebrate the factory which manufactured carbonated sodas. On the third side, a multi-cultural Rosie the Riveter reminds us of the women who worked in factories of the past and today. At the far-right corner, a giant leg brings out the hosiery mill history and a certain holiday film classic. The oversized frame is a connection to the current and long-operating framing business still located in the building.
Continue on Rail Trail to East, cross Camden, continue
Title: Confetti Hearts Wall
Location: 1920 Camden Road down the alley
Artist: Evelyn Henson
Date: 2018
Media: Acrylic paint
Artist Info: @evelyn_henson
Story: Commissioned by Asana Partners, a real estate development firm located in Charlotte, artist Evelyn Henson captures our hearts with her “painting happy art to brighten your day." This mural marks her first public art project and she has an additional mural in NoDa.
Key Formal Elements:
- Repetition
- Polychromatic color scheme
Make the Connection:
Instagram walls. Who knew we needed them. Here Henson makes a nice transition from her brightly colored more intimate scaled art to work on a large 40 square foot public mural and enter the arena of Instagrammable walls. Go ahead and take your selfie. Make sure you use the tag #confettiheartswall and #artwalksclt.
Continue on Camden, right on Tremont, left on Hawkins
Location: 2116 Hawkins Street back of the building
Artist: Gina Elizabeth Franco
Date: 2020
Media: Acrylic paint
Artist Info: @ginaelizabethfranco
Story: This Krispy Kreme corporate office houses test kitchen space and their global product and innovation center plus a donut vending machine! The adaptive reuse of a building built by D.A. Tompkins, an industrial leader of early Dilworth growth, is an important part of retaining neighborhood character and maintaining history. Asana Partners commissioned this mural and is an active arts partner in Charlotte.
Key Formal Elements:
- Repetition
- Symmetrical balance
Make the Connection
Hot Doughnuts Now! 72 individual and personalized doughnuts are painted by Greensboro-based artist Gina Elizabeth Franco. Her bold colors and pop art inspired art attracts many selfie takers. Look at all of the designs she creates and find the right doughnut for you!
Continue on Hawkins to corner of Rampart
Title: "From the Stillness, a seed of hope is planted"
Location: 201 Rampart Street
Artist: Nick Napoletano
Date: 2020
Media: Acrylic paint
Artist Info: @napoletanoart
Story: Street art is an immediate visual record of an artist’s response to events and important social commentary. Artists in Charlotte are responding during COVID – 19. This is the first pandemic related art in South End and first large-scale mural by Nick Napoletano in South End. Napoletano has work on our uptown, NoDa, Plaza-Midwood, and Elizabeth artwalks. In this mural, a young girl stands in front of a map of the world and holds a mask with a seedling growing out of it. She carries a backpack of gifts to bring to essential workers.
Key Formal Elements:
- Implied line of her gaze
- Highlights in her face
Make the Connection:
Look for the repetition of circles in this mural. Circles are traditional symbols of unity. From the circle of the mask, the circle of blue light around the seedling, and the partial circle of the globe, they unify the composition. The blue and orange squares on her backpack and the gift boxes provide a bit of variety.
Walk all the way to the end of Hawkins
Title: Hub Apartments Mosaic
Location: 2250 Hawkins Street
Artist: Grace Stott
Date: 2020
Media: Ceramic tile
Artist Info: @gracestottt
Story: Ceramics and mixed media artist Grace Stott was noted as one of Charlotte Magazine’s “Artists to Watch” in 2017. She is active in the Goodyear Arts Collective and curates exhibits around themes of millennial female imagery. Ram Realty commissioned the three outdoor artworks in this complex as well as art for the interior.
Key Formal Elements:
- Texture
- Limited color palette
Make the Connection:
Over 90 square feet of ceramic imagery displays Charlotte landmarks and markers and people who worked on the Hub South End project.
There are so many icons of Charlotte in this mural. Can you find some of your favorites? How about the Firebird at the Bechtler? The crown of Queen Charlotte? The South End water tower?