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Nashville murals, street art, graffiti, signs, sculptures and more

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October 2018

Beautiful Decay

BeautifulDecay

This mural manages to be both very large and yet somewhat hidden as well, located as it in an alleyway behind the Downtown Presbyterian Church. Part of the Nashville Walls Project, this mural, called “Beautiful Decay,” is by the Berlin-based American artist Tavar Zawacki. Zawacki started his career as an anonymous graffiti artist using the handle “ABOVE.” In time, he made use of an “above arrow” as his signature. Now that he has come out of the shadows, arrows are still a motif in his work. You can read his description of this mural on his website, and the Nashville Walls Project has a nice photo spread showing the creation of the mural. The trompe l’oeil lends itself to some obvious picture ideas.

Located at 144 5th Avenue North. That’s the address of the parking garage it’s painted on. The church it’s behind is at 154 5th Avenue North, at the corner with Church Street. This is downtown – plenty of parking, almost none of it free.

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Time passes

Meeksmain

The story of the mural on what is now the Fond Object building is complicated, as it is not one mural, but at least four. Back in 2012, a community produced mural led by Savannah McNeill of Hey Wanderer went up. There’s a nice time-lapse video of its production on YouTube. Look for the “two hands” picture below (I think I got that image from Google street view, but I’m not sure). But that was only the beginning. A Tim Kerr portrait of experimental producer Joe Meek went up in time to get the “best mural” award in the Nashville Scene’s Best of 2014 edition. See the picture below with Meek but not Tom Petty. Then, in the aftermath of the death of Tom Petty, a Jules Muck portrait honouring him went up this year. And more recently, a tribute by Jason Galaz and Maria “Poni” Silver to the co-owner of Fond Object, Joe Pettit, was added to the corner. There was never any whitewash. Pieces of the original mural are still visible. And yet this rapidly transforming mural may meet its ultimate transformation soon, as the building itself is under threat, as the owner is seeking to replace the building with a major development. Whether this multi-layered, multi-artist mural can survive very much remains to be seen.

MeeksOriginal

MeeksMiddleAge

Located at 1313 McGavock Pike. The mural faces Riverside Drive. Your best bet for parking is probably the gas station across the street.

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The full bee (an update)

CB2Main

I don’t think I have ever posted the same piece twice. But it seems that the bee on the outside wall of Eddie’s Cee Bee Food Store done by jamersonsgc which I featured in Low key bee was not even half finished! In retrospect, I should have guessed from the grey darker background area around the bee that maybe something else was planned, but the idea that the bee, which was finished, would then have a complex background added to it, did not occur to me. And this is basically twice the mural it was before, so I think I need to do more than just update the photo on the original blog post. Seriously, there was no flower, no bee nest cells, and the only Batman Building was on the face of the bee. I’d say this is a much stronger background for your next Instagram portrait, so head on down to Cee Bee’s! The last I checked there was also an obviously half-finished mural on the back of Cee Bee’s apparently by the same artist – I’m going to be much more patient posting about it!

CB2Full

Located at 109 Lafayette Street. The mural faces Lafayette. Cee Bee is a grocery store and has plenty of parking. Load up on sundries and enjoy the art!

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Off the wall (Part 9)

Donahue

The Off the Wall project finished up recently, celebrating with a launch party a couple weeks ago. And I’m working to wrap up this series documenting it. This piece is another work, titled “Sprite Mural,” is by Brandon Donahue, prominent local artist and TSU art professor. It’s one of the more recent murals to go up as part of this project, and was sponsored by Coca-Cola Consolidated, an independent Coca-Cola bottler. According to the Off the Wall site, the mural “includes North Nashville local boxer, Sena Agbeko, the late hip-hop artist Craig Mack who passed away a week before the mural [was finished].”

Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6 Part 7 Part 8 Part 10 Part 11 Part 12 Part 13 Part 14

Located at 3020 Charlotte Avenue. Your best bet for parking is perhaps across the street at Cross Fit Nashville or street parking on 31st Avenue north of Charlotte.

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