Charlotte artist Georgie Nakima paints hope across city

GEORGIE NAKIMA

Charlotte artist Georgie Nakima’s murals can be found across Charlotte, like this one at Independence Park.

Georgie Nakima has been silently leaving her mark across the Charlotte.

Her paint brush strokes in Charlotte’s historic West End have brought to life murals that pay homage to Black history with a futuristic twist. Nakima has painted more than 40 murals in throughout the city, but a trail of her technical artwork lines the outer portion of Uptown to Beatties Ford Road.

Some of her work depicting Black beauty is featured at the Harvey B. Gantt Center, on the gym floor at the McCrorey YMCA, parking deck at Camp North End and on the side of the Sugaree Place affordable apartments near the Hidden Valley neighborhood. 

“I think it's really important that we create images that counteract kind of the negative stereotypes that you see on the media that keep us divided and keep us feeling lesser than,” Nakima said. “I think it's important to have a representation of people of color that gives us dignity and hope and respect and create images for the future and for the youth. Things that feel futuristic and hopeful just because there's so much negativity out there.” 

Nakima’s murals are also featured at The Fillmore, East Town Market and Independence Park. 

Nakima grew up in Charlotte but is originally from New Bern in eastern North Carolina. Upon moving here, she studied briefly at Northwest School of the Arts, where she took her talents to new heights with formal classroom training. 

Georgie Nakima

However, it wasn’t until years after she graduated Winston-Salem State University with a degree in biology that she challenged herself with life-sized paintings on buildings. 

After three years as a research and lab assistant, Nakima jumped into the professional art by exploring opportunities to unleash her talent. She said understanding data visualization helped her bring sketches to life in large spaces.

“I just decided to take a leap of faith and focus full time on building my portfolio,” she said. “And it was a really amazing time where things really opened up as far as public art.

“I started getting requests to do murals, which is something I never really imagined myself to do. It’s something that I think being in a growing city like Charlotte and the trend of having a colorful city, it definitely helped put me in a position where I just ended up just kind of learning more and more and more about public art and public practice and community engaged art.” 

Nakima said she painted her first mural for free in NoDa on a community garden shed. Her next project was at Neighborhood Theatre followed by another at Solstice Tavern, which is now closed.

“They started being bigger and just kind of encouraging me to test my boundaries and see what else [was out there], how I needed to push myself, what I needed to learn how to do,” Nakima said. “I was mostly doing studio art before then. So I didn't necessarily have the techniques to paint big. It's something I had to learn along the way,” she added.

However, her skills have grown and led to commission projects in Boston, Denver and New Bern ranging from sculptures to murals and everything in between. 

Nakima said she is looking to continue building Charlotte’s “creative ecosystem” through additional collaborations on local projects with an emphasis on human study. 

“I think it’s really important that the people have uplifting images that represent who we are as dynamic people.” Nakima said. “I think I just like to create things that are inspirational to the human spirit and that is uplifting and that's colorful. I really take a deep interest into color therapy and color theory and just how colors have an effect on the mind's eye that can really influence our mood and just the way that we think and that we feel.

“So being a public artist, I just like creating things that make people feel good.”

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