Detail from Charity Hamidullah’s Soul Food mural created for the 2023 The Mural Fest in South Salt. Image credit: Shawn Rossiter
Charity Hamidullah is a multi-disciplinary artist from Rochester, New York who has worked in the Atlanta community since 2011. “Growing up in a multicultural household my principles were built on love and diversity. Since my youth, I have been inspired by the connection of love,” she says. “In my artwork, I use a strong sense of color to illustrate stories of connection through cultural differences with love and empowerment of individuals as the backbone.”
She began as a tattoo artist, but seven years ago turned to mural art to narrate her stories on a larger canvas. “I started making pieces for free walls in Atlanta and then began painting the exterior of my tattoo shop: Black Owl Tattoos in East Atlanta. As more people saw the spaces, my clientele began to blossom and muralist became a full-time rewarding career,” she says.
“Soul Food” is the theme of the piece she was commissioned to create for the 2023 The Mural Fest in South Salt Lake. “It is an idea that predominately arises in African-American cuisine but I believe soul food exists in all cultures,” she says. “The birth of this mural came from a conversation with the building owners, Allison and Adam. For this family, food has been a staple in their lives, with Adam being a chef for over 30 years. They inspired the context of the mural. Throughout the piece, it was my focus to highlight foods in their raw, healthy form. Inspiring the story that food is good for our soul and a great connector between us all as pieces of diversity are unified with the power of food.”
You can see more of the artist’s work at www.charityhamidullah.com
The full mural at 60 E. Burton Ave in South Salt Lake. Might be best to visit in the evening or on weekends, when the gravel lot won’t be full of trucks. Image credit: Shawn Rossiter
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Categories: Art Lake City | Visual Arts
What a brilliant depiction of a powerful vision! The choice to show foodstuffs alive here suggests how these living things don’t die in us—if we treat them with respect and even reverence—but their lives continue in us. It’s the cycle of all life. And so beautifully done, with shapes melding into each other, the colors shifting harmoniously from segment to segment. I believe Van Gogh was influenced by the then-new idea of life as cellular process, and here it may be again: cells form living bodies, just as meals make up days and, in time, lives. It’s a mural to stand beside medieval and renaissance church walls. Thanks you, In Plain Site.