Today in Street Art: Atlanta welcomes the World Cup with 21 bold murals

Going by viewership alone, the FIFA World Cup soccer championship is the world’s largest event. On a planet with 8.3 billion people it is estimated that 1.5 billion of them will be watching the World Cup’s final match. Teams from 48 countries will compete between June 11 and July 19 across sixteen North American cities, including Atlanta. Locally, our 1/16 slice of the World Cup pie will be the biggest global event to come to town since the 1996 Olympics.

In preparation for the event the Atlanta Mayor’s Office of Cultural Affairs (OCA) has commissioned 17 murals and Downtown Atlanta has joined in by sponsoring an additional four artworks. Adriane Jefferson, Executive Director of the OCA, is thinking both globally and locally. “Murals combined with our greenspace, restaurants, nightlife, movies and music are an accessible way to share the soul of Atlanta with the international community while beautifying our roadways,” said Jefferson.

Nina Dolgin, Program Manager of Arts and Activation for Downtown Atlanta, takes a long-term view of the project. “We saw this as an opportunity to invest in more permanent works that benefit the pedestrian experience in Downtown for years, beyond the World Cup games,” said Dolgin. In this article, I’ll present a preview of the artwork that Atlanta will share with all of humanity this summer, starting with the murals sponsored by Downtown Atlanta.

Artist: Nick Turbo Benson
Title: ATL Nighthawks at the Diner
Location: Waffle House at 135 Andrew Young International Blvd. NW

In this mural, Benson re-imagines Edward Hopper’s painting Nighthawks. Whereas Hopper portrays urban isolation, Benson turns the image on its head and instead focuses on joy and community.

“So this is probably the most personal mural I’ve ever painted,” said Benson. “When I was younger, my dad used to take me to Waffle House on the weekends, and this moment is a nod to that, but it’s also inspired by Norman Rockwell’s The Runaway. I’ve always admired Rockwell’s storytelling through his art. And especially, for this, an image of an adult reassuring a defiant kid who might be a little lost. For my first self-portrait in a mural, I decided to double it: [it’s] myself sitting with a younger version of myself.”

The artist also dropped several Easter eggs into the work. Here is just one example: the first two patrons of the diner on the left are Atlanta’s Grammy-award-winning duo Outkast. In the depiction, Andre 3000 stacks up three creamer cups alluding to his nickname “3 Stacks.” 

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Artist: Muhammad Yungai
Location: Behind the American Hotel, facing Andrew Young International Blvd. NW

This detailed painting by Muhammed Yungai depicts the 1966 opening day parade welcoming the Braves to Atlanta. Team members include hall-of-famers Hank Aaron and Phil Niekro, pictured here riding in streamer-festooned convertibles past a cheering crowd. The parade ended at the site of the mural – The American Hotel – Atlanta’s first integrated hotel which welcomed all players equally during the transition from Jim Crow.

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Artist: Angie Jerez
Location: AC Hotel at 101 Andrew Young International Blvd. NW

Jerez’s pastel-hued two-part mural celebrates the Spanish heritage of the AC Hotel chain which was founded in Madrid in 1998 by hotelier Antonio Catalán. The wall features images of a flamenco dancer; an icon of Spanish culture derived from the folk music of southern Spain.

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Artist: Sanithna Phansavanh
Location: Westin Peachtree Plaza facing Andrew Young International Blvd. NW

Sanithna highlights Georgia’s state flower, the Cherokee rose. In an Instagram post, @downtownatlanta said: “Though the rose is meant to symbolize Georgia’s history, the flower itself isn’t native here. Its roots trace back to southern China, Taiwan, and Vietnam, making this artwork a quiet celebration of Atlanta as a city shaped by cultures from around the world.”

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The OCA has scattered its 17 new World Cup murals across several different neighborhoods. “Not only do murals beautify public spaces, adding color and interest to our infrastructure they also communicate our values, represent our communities and tell our stories,” said Jefferson. Following are some of those stories:

Artist: Charity Hamidullah
Title: Wild Seed, Wild Flower
Location: Windsor Street and Rawson Street SW

This 400-foot-long, 10,000-square-foot collaboration between Charity Hamidullah and Living Walls is Atlanta’s largest commissioned mural, inspired by Octavia Butler’s novel Wild Seed. When I visited the work-site, Hamidullah told me about the art. “This is about love, it’s about community, it’s about support, and planting the seeds of that for tomorrow and for our future,” said Hamidullah. “Throughout the image, I wanted to illustrate larger than life people carrying out acts of kindness and love.”

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Artist: Charmaine Minniefield
Location: MLK Jr. Drive at Vine Street NW

This mural remembers Richard and Sarah Allen, founders of the African Methodist Episcopal Church in Philadelphia in 1816. The AME church was the first independent African American denomination, created in response to the racial discrimination found in white-led churches. The first women’s dorm at Morris Brown College was later named the Sarah Allen Plaza. It just so happens that Minniefield is the mother of the next artist on our list.

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Artist: Cienna Minniefield
Title: Sky of Jumping Stars
Location: Ralph David Abernathy Blvd at Bronner Brothers Way SW

This low wall, decked out in blue, green and yellow, spans almost a full block. “It’s about Atlanta and the playfulness and whimsicalness of Atlanta,” Minniefield told ArtsATL. “I really wanted to uplift the community and show that you can see yourself in the future. You’ll see children jumping and being whimsical. It really reminds me of my childhood, of being an Atlanta native.”

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Artist: Corey Barksdale
Location: Northside Drive at 17^th Street NW

This 429-foot-long panorama by Corey Barksdale traces the history of the formerly enslaved Bland family who came to be the founders of Atlanta’s Blandtown neighborhood. A train and a trolley represent the transportation industry which employed many in the neighborhood. The mural also shows stock car racing which was popular among African American Atlantans.

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Artist: Debbi Snax
Location: Dill Avenue under the railroad bridge at Murphy Avenue SW

The I Spy children’s books series inspired this immersive mural. On the day that I visited, Snax climbed down from the lift and explained her thoughts on the design, “You know how you’re driving around town and [say] ‘I spy a hydrangea,’ or ‘I spy flame azaleas,’ or the building that I know on Dill Avenue. It celebrates the strength, the resilience, and the identity of these neighborhoods [in Atlanta City Council District 12]. It’s something playful for the neighbors to enjoy.”

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Artist: Kyle Brooks
Title: The Sidewalk Circus
Location: Trinity Avenue at Broad Street NW

When I stopped by this work in progress, I found Kyle Brooks, AKA BlackCatTips, using a five-gallon Lowe’s bucket as an impromptu stool as he brushed color onto his existing mural that he was refreshing. “This mural was based on some sculptures I saw in Bogota, Columbia. And that gave me the idea to draw each kind of sculpture and maybe the insides of the sculpture. And then it’s all mixed together, with kind of the spirit of a circus,” said Brooks.

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Artist: Larkin Ford
Title: The Golden Thicket
Location: Freedom Parkway at Ralph McGill Blvd. NE

I came across Ford as he was signing his name on his mural. “If a pedestrian walks down the path, they start out in the dark woods following a serpentine vine of poison ivy that weaves between briars and stones down the hill. As the wall’s height increases, the violet forest parts to reveal a spacious sky and an array of plant life from distant trees to larger-than-life ferns, dandelions and shelf fungus,” said Ford.

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Artist: Melissa A. Mitchell
Title: Trefoil Trail
Location: 17^th Street at Bishop Street NW

Former Girl Scout Melissa A. Mitchell produced her mural in collaboration with the Atlanta Girl Scouts, enlisting over 100 Girl Scouts to help complete the design. The wall is around a quarter mile long: about the length of 2,500 boxes of Samoas placed end-to-end. I interviewed Mitchell as she sat in a nearby restaurant designing the mural’s flags on her laptop. “Not only will we have soccer balls on the wall, we’ll have flags from every country represented, and we’ll have the Girl Scout’s Trefoil on there too. And you’ll see one of my subtle ways to connect everyone involved is to have a white bouncing line and a small green stripe.” Mitchell also painted a second mural with an abstract design a block to the west on 17^th Street.

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Artist: Nailah Smith
Location: Spellman Lane at Northside Drive NW

Smith told me the story behind her mural while applying the finishing touches. “This mural is for all the HBCUs,” said Smith. “Throughout the mural, there are different elements that represent the effect of the city on the schools and the effect of the schools on the city.” The artwork features students at desks, at an HBCU student center, in Piedmont Park, in front of a chalk board with students teaching each other, and on MARTA.

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Artist: Sarah Emerson
Titles: Mural 1 – Home, Mural 2 – Do no Harm
Location: Pollard Blvd at Ralph David Abernathy Blvd. SW

Emerson’s pair of 200-foot-long murals are a love letter to Atlanta, the city in the trees. “I do have a little bit of a shout-out to the city name,” said Emerson. “Of course, there’s a highway running through all the foliage and the flowers because you can’t be in Atlanta without driving.” The Botanical Garden’s Earth Goddess topiary crowns mural 1, while a boulder with the inscription “Do No Harm” is the focus of mural 2.

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Artist: Trudy Tran
Title: Rebirth
Location: 740 Sydney Marcus Blvd. NE

Tran put down her sprayer to give me an update on her wall. “This mural in Buckhead features historical residential buildings from the old Buckhead neighborhoods, it also features local floral elements found in the community gardens in Buckhead, and then there’s people of different cultures and diversity to show Buckhead’s wide demographic,” said Tran. ”There’s also a Phoenix featured to show Atlanta’s resilience and growth.”

Other OCA sponsored murals that had not yet been started at the time of this writing include:

• Ashley Dopson – Bolton Road southwest of Marietta RD NW
• Brianna Gardocki – Peachtree Street and Alabama Street SW 
• Catlanta – Forsythe Street Bridge near Five Points MARTA station
• Mr. Totem – Hill Street south of Decatur Street SE

While the designs are being installed to prepare for the upcoming sports festivities, I can’t emphasize enough that these 21 new murals aren’t just for visitors; they are also for Atlanta’s residents, and that means you! So, between World Cup matches, take a break from the telly and get out and see all of the new murals that artists, the OCA and Downtown Atlanta have gifted to us and to the world.

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Arthur Rudick created the Atlanta Street Art Map in 2017 after retiring from a successful career as an engineer with Eastman Kodak and the Coca-Cola Company. His first experience of art was seeing an Alexander Calder mobile as a child in the Pittsburgh airport. Rudick is ArtsATL’s street art expert and a regular contributor.