Start at Trader's Joes at Metropolitan
Location: 1133 Metropolitan Avenue
Artist: Ivan Roque
Date: 2019
Media: Acrylic paint
Artist Info:@ivanjroque
Story: Miami, Florida based artist Ivan Roque gets the perfect location at the Metropolitan. You can see his mural each time you drive in circles looking for a parking place in this very busy shopping center. The colors, sun, and landscape of South Florida appear often in this artist’s work but here his inspiration is North Carolina.
Key Formal Elements:
- Secondary colors of green and orange in the trout
- Oversized scale
Make the Connection:
A large brown trout with green and orange colors provides the focal point in this image. Found most often in mountain streams and lakes, the brown trout is native to this area. The artist frames the trout with blue iris flowers, another native species to North Carolina.
Take the elevator to the 6th Floor
Title: “Plight of Hand”
Location: 1055 Metropolitan Avenue, 6th floor of the parking garage
Artist: Tay Douglas
Date: 2019
Media: Acrylic paint
Artist Info: @tarantuga
Story: If you made it to the top of the parking deck, you are rewarded with both a mural and a lovely view of uptown. Once a local artist and now based in the Northeast, @tarantuga lost a wall, then got a wall, and then finally got a lift to do his mural painting for Talking Walls 2019.
Key Formal Elements:
- Outline and contour lines
- Symmetrical balance
Make the Connection:
A large hand holds what looks like a mountain range. With the water behind, perhaps it is a reference to North Carolina and from the mountains to the sea.
S Kings Dr to Charlottetown Ave, right, Right on East 4th
Title: "Resistencia"
Location: 1426 E. Fourth Street on side wall of Devil's Logic
Artist: Maria “Toofly” Castillo
Date: 2019
Media: Acrylic paint
Artist Info: @toofly_nyc
Story: Ecuadorian and New York artist Toofly completed this mural for Talking Walls 2019. But then she almost didn’t. From her native Ecuador, Toofly encountered many flight delays on her trip to Charlotte as her country was in the midst of a violent protest and she barely made it here.
Key Formal Elements:
- Contour lines in the roses
- Symmetrical balance
Make the Connection:
Toofly paints her signature “Love Warrior.” As one of the first women to work in graffiti and street art in NYC in the early 1990s, the artist uses her artistic platform to inspire, empower, and educate women and youth. The “Love Warrior” figure communicates strength and power while the inclusion of the roses alludes to more traditional femininity.
On side wall of Devil's Logic
Location: 1426 E. Fourth Street
Artist: Emily Eldridge
Date: 2019
Media: Acrylic paint
Artist Info: @emily_eldridge_art
Story: Berlin-based artist and illustrator Emily Eldridge completed this mural for Talking Walls 2019. With a BFA from Savannah College of Art and Design (SCAD), Eldridge has worked in Hong Kong, Spain and now Germany. This is her first mural project in the US. Yay Emily!
Key Formal Elements:
- Lack of negative space meaning the figures cover almost all of the wall
- Flat shapes of color dominate
Make the Connection:
Ponytails. Sunglasses. Painted fingernails. Embracing her love of pop culture and pop art, Eldridge celebrates everything female. Simple, stylized, and fun, the artist invites you to see yourself as one of the figures. Flower power. Female power. During a year that saw the #MeToo movement, the Talking Walls festival committed to have 50% of their artists be female. Indulge your femininity and pick your favorite pony-tailed figure.
Right on E Fourth, left on Hawthorne, left on Elizabeth
Title: "C for Certain" at Spokeasy
Location: 1530 Elizabeth Avenue
Artist: Pref ID
Date: 2019
Media: Acrylic paint
Artist Info: @pref-id
Story: London-based British artist Pref ID completed this mural for Talking Walls 2019. As a text artist, Pref ID explores words, typography, and common sayings as a way to ask questions and question meaning.
Key Formal Elements:
- Limited palette
- Line
Make the Connection:
The morphing, merging and layering of letters executed by the artist can be confusing. It requires a double take sometimes. “C For Certain” is the title of this mural. Can you find the C? What is really for certain?
On same wall
Location: 1530 Elizabeth Ave at Spokeasy
Artist: Joey Obso
Date: 2018
Media: Acrylic paint
Artist Info: @joeyobso
Story: Local mural and graffiti artist Obso completed this mural for Talking Walls 2018. Obso is known for his comic book style, magical and mysterious art, and his artistic partnerships. Here a large, menacing eagle with talons up dominates a clear blue background while sneakily, a spunky chipmunk gets ready to fight.
Key Formal Elements:
- Scale
- Implied motion
Make the Connection:
Here’s a short lesson in Graffiti 101. There are two main types of lettering styles in graffiti. Simples are bubble style letters or balloon style letters. Wild style lettering is a more complicated and intricate lettering style, even calligraphic. Usually highly stylized, with interlocking letters, it can be hard to read. Obso’s mural features “wild style” letters at the bottom of the composition. Can you figure out what it says? Tag @artwalksclt with your answer.
Continue on Elizabeth to N. Kings Dr, turn right, follow to
Location: 927 Central Avenue at 7th Sin Tattoo
Artist: Jeks
Date: 2018
Media: Acrylic paint
Artist Info: @jeks_nc
Story: Greensboro-based Jeks painted this mural for Talking Walls 2018. Jeks is a nationally known graffiti artist, street artist, and muralist known for his hyperrealist portraits.
Key Formal Elements:
- Highlights
- Visual texture
Make the Connection:
The skull is a common vanitas symbol. It also looks pretty cool. A vanitas painting has objects that are symbolic of the certainty of death and remind the viewer of the fleeting quality of our lives. But the senuous surface quality of the skull draws us into its beauty.
"La Patria"
Title: “La Patria”
Location: 1721 N. Davidson Street
Artist: Gus Cutty
Date: 2018
Media: Acrylic paint
Artist Info:@guscutty
Story: Gus Cutty is Asheville based and a large part of the mural community of the Southeast. While his mural here at the Abari Game Bar is the only Talking Walls mural, take some time to look around at all of the other murals in this art hot spot.
Key Formal Elements:
Limited palette of red, white and blue
Make the Connection:
Cutty wants us to think. He says that he prefers for his work to initiate conversation and this mural does indeed. In large letters, “La Patria” meaning homeland gives the viewer a frame of reference. Whose homeland? The close-up of a chain link fence, an historic sailing vessel, and a figure of a Black male. What types of questions about identity does he want you to consider?
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Right on Parkwood, right on E. 16th, right on N. Tryon
Location: 1610 N. Tryon Street at Extravaganza
Artist:BellaPhame
Date: 2019
Media: Acrylic paint
Artist Info: @bellaphame
Story: This Portugal-based husband and wife team form their artistic name with a combination of each of their individual names. They work internationally and were part of the 2019 Talking Walls.
Key Formal Elements:
- Limited color palette
- Rhythm created with use of white shapes
Make the Connection:
The purple and teal colors represents their artistic partnership. Each color is a connection to one of them and their use is always balanced in their art. If you had an artistic color, what would it be?
Can you spot the word searches that have references to Charlotte? Which artists names can you find?
Follow N. Tryon Street
Location: 2215 N. Tryon Street at Pure Intentions Coffee
Artist: Arko & Owl
Date: 2018
Media: Acrylic paint
Artist Info: @arko.clt, @owl.clt
Story: Prominent local artists Arko and Owl are another husband and wife team whose projects embrace the balance of two very different artistic styles. Owl’s metaphysical blob forms of undulating lines flow across the wall. While the magical, fantasy landscapes produced by Arko tell a story of his make-believe world. Together they are richly layered and delight the eye. Oh, and the artists wear masks when they work.
Key Formal Elements:
- Expressive use of line by Owl
- Outline in the reclining figure by Arko
Make the Connection:
Why wear a mask when they work? Each believes that working while masked allows them to create freely and removes any gender or ethnicity from their work. In this composition which spans two walls and a corner, an Arko figure sees a vision and follows that vision around the corner where the Owl blob forms flow across the doors. The playful figure on the green blobs of grass searches the landscape.
Follow N. Tryon, right at E. 36th Street
Title: Ink Floyd mural
Location: 1101 E. 36th Street at Ink Floyd
Artist: Trasheer
Date: 2018
Media: Acrylic paint
Artist Info: @trasheer
Story: Mexico City artist @trasheer is influenced by comics and surrealism and this mural is from the inaugural year of Talking Walls.
Key Formal Elements:
- Warm colors of the main areas of the figure with pops of the cool color blue
- Outline
Make the Connection:
Are you burning the candle at both ends? With a figure that is both human like but also animal like, maybe the artist is making a statement about our over stimulated world. Notice the use of the small comic book dots called Ben-Day dots.
Follow E. 36th to The Plaza, turn right
Title: “Queen Life”
Location: 3217 The Plaza at Chasers
Artist: Ramiro Davaro-Comas
Date: 2018
Media: Acrylic paint
Artist Info: @ramirostudios
Story: Ramiro Davaro-Comas is an Argentine-American artist living in NY and Director of Dripped on the Road, a traveling artist residency. As an artist, he’s inspired by street art and comics.
Key Formal Elements:
- Variety rules here
- Repetition
Make the Connection:
Eleven figures in princess dresses, thickly applied lipstick, and hair styled to the max line the wall of this bar. Purple, brown, red, or blue hair and frilly, patterned dresses guide your eye down the wall. Each celebrates the feminine and they are all queens of Charlotte. Do you have a favorite?
Follow The Plaza to 2902
Title: “Almost Gone”
Location: 2902 The Plaza at Tip Top Market
Artist: Scott Nurkin
Date: 2018
Media: Acrylic paint
Artist Info:@themuralshop
Story: Scott Nurkin grew up in Charlotte, went to UNC Chapel Hill and is the founder of The Mural Shop. His studio is currently working on a series of murals celebrating North Carolina musical legends. Give them a follow @ncmusicianmurals. In this mural, Nurkin features a dozen native species to North Carolina that are “critically endangered.”
Key Formal Elements:
- Visual texture
- Lack of negative space
Make the Connection:
From left to right here are the animals that are “critically endangered.” eastern cougar, noonday globe snail, bog turtle, Virginia big eared bat, St. Francis butterfly, green salamander, flying squirrel, short nose sturgeon, gopher frog, red wolf, and the right whale. It is hard to image that the next step for all of the animals is extinct.
Follow The Plaza to Central Ave, turn left
Location: 2407 Central Avenue at Mecklenburg Valve
Artist: Denton Burrows
Date: 2018
Media: Acrylic paint
Artist Info:@dentonburrows
Story: Denton Burrows is based in Manhattan and is the co-founder of Dripped on the Road, a traveling artist residency program. He’s won numerous awards, painted all over the country (49 states) and is a public art entrepreneur.
Key Formal Elements:
- Symmetrical balance
- Polychromatic color scheme
Make the Connection:
The original composition for Talking Walls are the three profile views of a figure. Each is made up shapes of colors against the black background. Organic and flowing, it brings to mind the Renaissance painter Giuseppe Archimboldo’s style of creating portraits with shapes of fruit. Just a little art history… Fun fact: the owners of Mecklenburg Valve liked his mural so much that they commissioned him to come back and paint the rest of the wall.
Follow Central Avenue back to Plaza Midwood
Location: 1600 Central Ave on front wall of Pizza Peel
Artist: Darion Fleming
Date: 2018
Media: Acrylic paint
Artist Info: @da.flemingo
Story: Darion Fleming is a young, talented artist who got his first start relatively recently designing cans of beer for local breweries. He quickly moved to a much larger scale designing walls for Catawba Brewery and Divine Barrel. Fleming has two murals in Plaza Midwood with this one and one on The Plaza.
Key Formal Elements:
- Outline and contour lines in the skeleton
- Limited palette – warm colors and the use of black and white
Make the Connection:
Here the artist 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?
On side of Pizza Peel
Location: 1600 Central Avenue
Artist: Niki Zarrabi
Date: 2019
Media: Acrylic paint
Artist Info: @nikizarrabi
Story: Atlanta-based Niki Zarrabi is an Iranian-American mixed-media artist and 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?
Continue on Central Avenue toward Uptown
Location: 1306 Central Avenue
Artist: Valeriya Volkova
Date: 2019
Media: Acrylic paint
Artist Info: @valtastic
Story: Valeriya Volkova painted this mural as part of “Dripped on the Road” for Talking Walls 2019. “Dripped on the Road” is a traveling artist residency program based out of Brooklyn. For several weeks, resident artists and mentors travel and camp in an RV in national parks, give talks to universities, and paint murals.
Key Formal Elements:
- Repetition of the purple pods
- Organic shapes
Make the Connection:
Volkova likes to paint cities, houses, and landscapes of your imagination. Her fantasy worlds are connected to Surrealist painters like Salvador Dali and the world of comics. In this mural, individual purple islands flow across the wall of the building. Perhaps, but maybe not, this is a commentary on social isolation. Or just a fun, colorful imaginary place. What do you think?
Moo & Brew Parking Lot
Location: 1300 Central Avenue
Artist: Tucker Sward
Date: 2019
Media: Acrylic paint
Artist Info: @t.v.c.k
Story: Local artist Tucker Sward painted this mural for Talking Walls 2019. Sward, who studied at UNCC and apprenticed with muralists duo Matt Hooker and Matt Moore, is also a tattoo artist. His recent works include murals at Camp North End and Myers Park Baptist Church.
Key Formal Elements:
- Asymmetrical Balance
- Focal point of the white sphere
Make the Connection:
Sward suggests a sense of wonder and discovery with this portrait of his sister staring intently at a white ball of light mysteriously escaping her hand. Use of a black and white value scale contrasted with the unusual colors may suggest two realities. Perhaps the white sphere symbolizes the blank canvas of an artist or the blank canvas of our lives. The colorful bolts could be a metaphor for imagination.
Moo & Brew Parking Lot
Location: 1300 Central Avenue
Artist: Madman
Date: 2018
Media: Acrylic paint
Artist info: @madmanart
Story: : Phoenix-based Madman painted this mural for Talking Walls 2018. Madman began his career in graphic design and animation and now works nationally as a mural artist.
Key Formal Elements:
- Abstract
- Irregular shapes
Make the Connection:
Notice all the walls around you with murals in this one area. The Moo & Brew restaurant owner is a sponsor of Talking Walls. Charlotte would not have murals on walls without strong support of art loving businesses. Thank you!