Norfolk, VA
Norfolk's NEON District has built a national reputation as a destination for large-format contemporary street art, with a concentration of ambitious murals in a compact area that makes it one of the South's premier outdoor gallery experiences. Ghent's historic residential character and the Freemason district's colonial architecture provide contrasting contexts for more intimate public art work.
Featured Artists
All artists →Marcus Graham
Graham is the architect of Norfolk's NEON District mural identity, having created the early large-format commissions that established the area's reputation and attracted subsequent artists. His abstract compositions are created at a scale that makes them visible from blocks away, using a palette that references the visual environment of the Chesapeake Bay watershed—water, marsh, sky, and the industrial waterfront that defines Norfolk's working character.
Sophia Blake
Blake creates murals that honor the layered residential history of Ghent, one of Norfolk's oldest and most architecturally intact neighborhoods. Her Colley Avenue work uses historical photographs and community oral histories to create narrative murals that place the neighborhood's past and present in visual dialogue, creating a sense of historical depth that enriches the streetscape.
James Nguyen
Nguyen is a Vietnamese-American artist whose work reflects the experience of Norfolk's large Vietnamese-American community, one of the legacies of the city's naval base and the Vietnamese refugee resettlement that followed the fall of Saigon. His Freemason murals create unexpected connections between the colonial architecture of one of Virginia's oldest neighborhoods and the cultural heritage of one of its newest communities.