‘It’s so magical’: Charlotte’s first graffiti park opens in NoDa

“Imagine your artwork as a sandcastle.” Those words are written in bold on a sign welcoming artists into the TAOH Outdoor Gallery.

Beyond the sign, more than a dozen billboards on wooden posts have been covered with spray-painted graffiti tags, neon bubble letters and vignettes stretching 20 feet wide.

All of this work is temporary and could get painted over tomorrow.

“It’s just really here for whatever the community feels it needs and wants to manifest,” Charlotte street artist Osiris Rain said.

He beams as he surveys the four-week-old gallery he helped found at 2200 North Brevard St. beside the light rail in NoDa. It’s billed as Charlotte’s first graffiti park.

Beside him, muralist and cofounder Sydney Duarte smiles.

“You have folks that are really spending several days to make a beautiful production, some people that just come in very quickly and want to get in and out,” she says.

Like Rain, Duarte is bubbling with excitement and literally skips through the outdoor gallery, showing off her favorite pieces — such as one painted on the ground.

“This is the new Twister that just got installed,” she said, laughing.

The classic party game is spray painted onto the concrete floor, with a spinner made of wood and a screw.

“It’s so magical,” she says as another artist and gallery cofounder, Treazy Treaz, jumps into the game behind her, calling out, “Left hand green!”

Elsewhere in the gallery, artists have added sculptures and a rope swing. Picnic tables and a grill create a laid-back atmosphere.

The idea for this outdoor gallery originated from a trip Rain took to Barcelona in 2019. There, he visited a graffiti park called The Garden of the Three Chimneys.

“It’s a massive outdoor industrial flat, where it’s free access to do essentially what you see here, and it was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen, and I was like, ‘We need this.'” he recalls.

Rain got his training as a classical painter, and later produced scenic murals for films.

In his late teens and early 20s, he remembers practicing graffiti at an old Charlotte skatepark a few blocks away underneath the Matheson Avenue bridge.

He had permission to paint there, he says, but “the police did not know this, and they would come and arrest people there, so I’ve had to run through this trainyard more times than I ever wanted to.”

Earlier this year, he won a city grant to create a place for graffiti artists to practice without having to run from the police.

Serendipitously, one of his former art clients heard about the plan and offered up this undeveloped piece of land for the artists to use free of charge.

The gallery’s name — TAOH — comes from a hieroglyphic symbol designed by Treaz.

“TAOH is a new symbol that we’ve created for peace, and it stands for ‘The Awakening Of Humanity,'” Treaz said.

Originally from Brisbane, Australia, Treaz has been on a mission to spread the symbol around the world, and now it’s the defining symbol of the graffiti park.

“It’s a first thing for Charlotte — the first legal spray park — but it’s also got a connection to a worldwide movement, so it’s a little beacon, like bom bom bom going out there,” he said.

All three artists say they visit the gallery nearly every day, greeting people and helping young artists learn new skills.

“One girl came in and did a very small piece with a brush, then the next week she came back and wanted to try spray painting, so she did a bigger piece, and then the next week, she advanced to one of the eight-foot walls,’ Duarte said.

She leans down to inspect one of the creations by the young artist: An eye with three irises in a palette of blues and purples painted on a squat brick wall.

“That was her first time ever using a spray can, and it may not look like much to other people, but I think it’s beautiful. I’m really proud of her,” Duarte said.

Like the art within it, the graffiti park may not last forever. The artists only have access to the property through February. Then, the gallery may have to move.

So the artists are treating this gallery in the same manner as the art it contains — like a sandcastle that could be swept away, then joyfully recreated.

The TAOH Outdoor Gallery will host a grand opening on Saturday, Sept. 14 from 2 – 10 p.m. at 2200 North Brevard St., across from the 25th Street Blue Line light rail stop.

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