Art for Walls

Throughout Carolina Beach are colorful wall murals celebrating the history and culture of the beach town first established in 1857. Two newly installed bring the total to 19 murals. Most are within the central business district, creating a discovery walking tour in and among the businesses.

Each mural is painted by a different artist, with one exception. Each is unique. Topics include an updated rendering by Carolina Beach artist Susan Nuttall of a historic Welcome to Carolina Beach postcard. The mural sits at the northeast corner of the town’s municipal complex.

“I took a very outdated postcard and updated it to made it represent Carolina Beach today,” Nuttall says. The mural takes the form of a standing sign.

At the south facing corner of Celtic Creamery when South Lake Park Boulevard intersects Harper Avenue is a tribute to Capt. John W. Harper who brought early day trippers from a river boat to the beach pavilion aboard the passenger train Shoo Fly at the head of Myrtle Grove Sound.  This was not only pre-Snows Cut but also its bridge. It is entitled Cape Fear’s Captain. Harper built his pavilion in 1887.

 On a building between Harper Avenue and Cape Fear Boulevard is Beach Breeze, wrapping the back wall of the Arcade facing Canal Drive with kites aloft by Jenna Rice, a fulltime muralist from Greensboro. Rice says she was exposed to art at a young age. Growing up she was a Hasbro kid. Her father worked for the toy and games company when packaging was hand drawn. 

“He taught me a lot of drawing when I was a kid,” she says.

Her mom dabbled in art. Rice says she did not enter college planning to be an artist. She began as a communications major then an English major and finally switched to art.

Marine Magic on Raleigh Avenue depicts a swimming loggerhead sea turtle, jellyfish and fearsome shark. It is on the northern wall beside the Dive with its entrance located on N. Lake Park Avenue.

Opposite, on the south side of Island Book Shop, is Tribute to Carolina Shag, with the venerable Ocean Plaza (now torn down) and Malcolm “Chicken” Hick and of course Hick’s white shoes.

At the end of Cape Fear Boulevard at the boardwalk on the north and west facing walls of Hurricane Alley’s are two murals depicting iconic boardwalk scenes, including the Ferris wheel. Both are entitled Summer on the Boardwalk by Chapel Hill artist Scott Nurkin, who has been a mural painter for more than 20 years. 

“I was excited to be asked by the Carolina Beach Mural Project to join this now vast collection of awesome artists and murals to do not one but two murals right next to each other,” Nurkin says.  

Located east of the boardwalk’s amusement rides, the smaller is a night portrait of the Ferris wheel with fireworks. On the west wall is a larger scene depicting a day at the beach by the pavilion.

With five individual Polaroid photo style scenes, Best Day Ever is by Maddie Deiters, a teen artist from Illinois. Her mother and her dad travel with her to paint murals.

“One of the things about being an artist is you never know if you’ll succeed. I suppose I knew that moment was for me after I had done my first mural, because up and until that point I had always heard of the starving artist and I had not even considered art as an option for a career,” Deiters says.

In partnership with the Island Women’s Literacy Committee, some murals have QR codes that can be scanned to encourage children ages 5-12 and their families to read more about the subjects. 

Funded by the North Carolina Arts Council, the murals are also documented into an aerial tour by Carolina Beach Mural Project that can be found on its website. The interactive site offers an audio player with comments by each artist. A virtual reality headset mode is offered.

The 18th mural, Kites Eye View by Nico Amortegui, was installed in April on the 125-foot-long Pavilion Avenue sidewalk located  in the Boardwalk district, with an alley party and meet-and-greet scheduled in May.

Amortegui is a North Carolina-based artist who was born and raised in Bogotá, Colombia. His murals and sculptures can be found in cities throughout North Carolina as well as Atlanta, Washington, D.C., and Tel Aviv. His art, selected from among 23 submissions, has transformed the alleyway into a vibrant destination.

Also installed in April was CB Catch of the Day by Carolina Beach resident Forrest Van Keuren. This is a vinyl installation on the ice machine trailer that faces Stoked Restaurant at the recently renovated town marina.

Mural number 20 will depict the Carolina Beach shoreline and shore birds.

Carolina Beach Mural Project, the nonprofit behind the murals, began soliciting applications for their last mural of 2024 in mid-March. The bid closes on July 1. The winner will be announced on July 15, and the mural is scheduled to be completed by October 1.

Many of the murals have been incorporated into keepsake merchandise that is sold on the nonprofit’s website. The Carolina Beach Mural Committee has several projects lined up in 2025 which will celebrate Carolina Beach’s 100th year of incorporation.