Having now spent a decade in the local street art scene, muralist Osiris Rain has been witness to an explosive growth in interest for public art of all kinds in Charlotte — especially murals like those he specializes in.
Street art has become more accepted and even desired around the city, with developers often commissioning muralists to grace the walls of their new complexes and other buildings as a part of construction.
However, as the population grows, so does the arts scene, and the number of artists interested in doing such work has exploded right along with the demand.
“Artists are trying to get into this genre, but a lot of artists don’t have the training or the opportunity to develop those skills or the space to be mentored in those skills,” explained Rain. “And I think that we have a demand within the market that can’t be satiated right now.”
Enter Rain’s latest project: the TAOH Outdoor Gallery. Launched in partnership with the Piece for Peace Movement, Proffitt Dixon Partners, Art Walks CLT and many of his peers in the local creative community, TAOH Outdoor Gallery is being touted as Charlotte’s first graffiti park, giving local artists of all stripes a place to practice their craft — be it spray-paint, sculpting, installations, chalk art or whatever.
Located on an undeveloped lot at 2200 North Brevard Street, Rain is hoping TAOH Outdoor Gallery can serve not only as an incubator for local artists but a gathering place for all types of creatives to come together and build community.
“We hope the culture that we’re creating here is for everyone to feel welcome, everyone to not be afraid to ask a question, for everyone to just cheer each other on,” said Sydney Duarte, a local artist who is helping to launch TAOH Outdoor Gallery. “Don’t be afraid to just go bigger, try something new. It’s just like a safe space for people to create — for people that have either never had the opportunity to go a little bigger or need a place to practice.”
Growth and collaborations
While Rain has long wanted to open a graffiti park in Charlotte, the mission behind it began to take shape when Duarte introduced him to the Piece for Peace movement, a collaborative international effort to harness the power of good through creativity.
Launched in March of this year, Piece for Peace kicked off with workshops in 16 countries, including one in Uptowns Victoria Yards in April. The movement revolves around two driving symbols: the peace sign and the TAOH symbol.
An acronym that stands for “The Awakening of Humanity,” the TAOH Outdoor Gallery will serve as a sister project of the Piece for Peace movement, with a monthly paint prize pack giveaway to an artist who creates a “PEACE piece” at the gallery and tags @PieceForPeace_Movement in a picture.
But the real mission behind the TAOH Outdoor Gallery is more localized. While the current space is temporary, offered by Stuart Proffitt of Proffitt Dixon Partners while his firm awaits the right time to start construction on a new apartment complex at the site, Rain’s goal is for the current space to serve as a pilot program of sorts, showing how impactful such a project can be for the community as a whole.
“The beauty of it and the goal is to show that it works, show that it adds value to the community, show that it creates a space for interaction, dialogue, and growth to occur, and to be able to present that case study to the city and to Park and Rec in a convincing manner so that we can establish a permanent space through the city,” he explained.
And if it takes awhile for the folks with the power to do that to come to their senses, Rain said he’s ready to keep TAOH Outdoor Gallery going however and wherever he can. The nearly 20 8-foot-tall wooden canvases that range in width from 8 to 50 feet can be packed into a trailer over a weekend and moved wherever they need to go.
“If the city decides they don’t want to get their shit together and realize that this is an important part of the fabric of our community, what I’ll do is … I’ll go to the next client developer of mine and see who’s sitting on a lot that they can’t develop due to waiting on permits, and we’ll build it again and let it ride for as long as it goes until they break ground.”
The existence of the park is already a sign that the city is warming up to creative projects. In June, the city announced that Rain and the TAOH Outdoor Gallery would be one of 35 grantees for the new slate of 2024 Opportunity Fund grants, allocated by the City of Charlotte Arts and Culture Advisory Board.
For Rain, who originally planned to come out of pocket for the project, the announcement was the sign of a shift in Charlotte’s culture.
“It’s important, not just for this project, but for a lot of other projects that these funds have provided for this year,” he said. “It’s incredible, it’s necessary … Sometimes, even if the vision exists and even if the manpower and the will exists, I know a lot of things stop at vision because there’s a lack of will, but even if all those things line up, if you can’t afford the basic structure of getting something off the ground, a lot of things just die in the water. So it was massively important for getting this off the ground.”
A place for practice and visibility
Built on the principle that the city needs more works in progress, the TAOH Outdoor Gallery itself will be a work in progress.
A document released by the TAOH team lays out a few early ground rules, all of which revolve around accessibility, inclusivity and patience with others. Folks shouldn’t expect their works to stay up beyond a week, explained Rain, as this is meant to be a space specifically made for practicing the craft.
There will be a certain honor system that artists will need to follow to avoid conflict when a recent work gets painted over. Artists are asked to use their discretion in trying to paint over the pieces that have been there the longest rather than something that went up that day, for example, while judging for themselves how their own skills compare to the piece they are covering.
Rain was inspired by similar parks where he has painted in Europe, specifically Jardins de les Tres Xemeneies in Barcelona.
“We want everybody to feel they’re welcome and not discouraged to paint, but also to understand that there are hierarchies to quality and longevity,” he said. “So if you’re just practicing, you’ve got to understand that that’s not going to last forever, but the street code is to recognize skill and quality and do not go over something that is better than what you can do.”
Duarte compares it to a sand castle, a metaphor that Rain has borrowed in describing how participants should view their works at the gallery.
“You learn to paint it, you enjoy the process and, Sydney worded it well, treat it like a sandcastle on the beach; put all of your love into it, put all of your energy into it, but when the tide comes in and washes it out, don’t get angry.”
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Treazy Treaz, a local artist who moved here from Australia and has advocated for the Piece for Peace movement, agreed that people overseas have found the right balance for how to ensure there isn’t conflict at graffiti parks. He hopes to bring the collaborative vibe he has witnessed in Australian parks to Charlotte.
“The goal of this is to really elevate Charlotte’s art scene,” Treaz told Queen City Nerve. “To give the people who haven’t had a chance to really practice … something to aspire to, like we’re an open book. And hopefully other people here can show people, if someone needs help, we can use that as almost like a school of the streets.
The team behind TAOH is planning a grand opening event at the site on Sept. 14 that will include workshops, music, food trucks, artist talks and an outdoor screening of a documentary on graffiti and hip-hop in the 1980s.
In the meantime, artists have been in and out of the park, gracing the walls with large-scale murals and smaller fill-ins on the corners of the walls. When Queen City Nerve stopped by on July 21, the first day people began painting, the communal vibe was strong, with folks hanging out, painting here and there but mostly just discussing the potential for the project.
For Rain, that’s what TAOH Outdoor Gallery is all about.
“It’s the necessity of being able to congregate and talk with like-minded artists and people,” he said. “Even if you aren’t an artist, having people be able to be a part of that community space, because it’s not just a place to paint, it’s a place to congregate, it’s a place to exchange ideas. And it’s doing that for so many people. And it makes me want to cry. It’s incredible.”
Visit taohoutdoorgallery.com or follow @taohoutdoorgallery to learn more about the project .
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