Public art in Charlotte

This page lists what is in the register and where. It does not describe the works — we have not examined them, and a guide that tells you what a sculpture "evokes" without having stood in front of it is making it up.

How to read this list

141 works are recorded as exterior — outdoors, and findable without going into a building. 98 are interior, held inside working public buildings: the airport, libraries, police premises, the Convention Center, the courthouse. The register says nothing about whether those interior works can be seen by a visitor, so this page names the building that holds them and leaves it there.

The register also carries no installation dates and no condition or removal field. It records what is on the list, not what is standing today. Treat it as a starting point for finding a work, not a guarantee that it is still there.

The artists

The register names 194 distinct artists. The most frequently recorded are Tommie Robinson (9 works), Shaun Cassidy (7) and Ray Kaskey (6), followed by Donna Foster, Paul Sires and Amy Bagwell with four each.

What kinds of work

117 sculptures, 34 murals, 13 paintings, 7 photographic works, 6 wall hangings, 5 works in art glass and 5 computerised light works, plus mosaics, environmental works and a tail of one-offs — a gate, a streetscape, laser-cut panel fencing, artist-designed bus shelters, and an interactive sculpture disc with a music component.

Outdoor works in Charlotte, by place

133 of the Charlotte works are recorded as exterior. Where several share a site, they are grouped.

Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department (10)

Charlotte-Mecklenburg Library (5)

Central Avenue Streetscape (4)

Charlotte Fire Department (4)

NASCAR Hall of Fame (4)

Spectrum Center (4)

The Charlotte Uptown Square (4)

Charlotte Douglas International Airport (3)

Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools (3)

Cross Charlotte Trail (3)

Eastway Regional Recreation Center (3)

Reid Park Neighborhood (3)

Silos at SouthEnd (3)

Belmont Neighborhood Markers (2)

Charlotte-Mecklenburg Utilities Department (2)

Clifton E. Johnson Building (2)

Elizabeth Neighborhood (2)

Hidden Valley Northeast Corrider (2)

Mecklenburg County Aquatic Center (2)

Mecklenburg County Courthouse (2)

Valerie C. Woodard Center (2)

Individual sites (64 works)

Works held indoors

98 works are recorded as interior only, and 3 more as both interior and exterior. They are held in buildings that exist for other purposes, and the register makes no statement about public access — so these are listed as holdings, not as destinations. The buildings holding the most are:

• Charlotte Douglas International Airport — 32 works
• Charlotte-Mecklenburg Library — 15 works
• Charlotte Convention Center — 10 works
• Hal Marshall Center — 9 works
• Spectrum Center — 4 works
• Animal Control Facility — 4 works
• Second Ward Gym — 2 works
• Mecklenburg County Courthouse — 2 works
• Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department — 2 works
• Charlotte-Mecklenburg Youthful Offender Facility — 1 work
• Wallace H. Kuralt Center — 1 work
• ImaginOn — 1 work

Charlotte Douglas International Airport holds 35 works, the largest single concentration in the county's register. If you have time between flights, see our CLT layover guide.

Beyond Charlotte

The register also covers the towns: 7 works in Huntersville, 2 each in Matthews, Cornelius and Mint Hill, and 1 in Pineville.

Why the city owns most of this

Charlotte's public art collection is not an accident of taste. Charlotte City Code Chapter 15, Article IX — the Charlotte public art program — requires that every eligible city capital improvement project allocate one percent of projected construction costs to art. The article dates from Ordinance No. 2308, adopted 27 May 2003, and it replaced an earlier arrangement that ran from city and county resolutions of 23 November 1981 and 10 May 1993.

A few things follow from the text that are worth knowing:

• Not every project counts. No allocation is made where the estimated expenditure falls below the threshold requiring formal bidding under state law. And the one percent is not one percent of everything: land acquisition, demolition, environmental remediation, equipment, change orders and legal, design and accounting fees all come out of the base first.
• Transit is carved out. Art in transit projects run to the Metropolitan Transit Commission's guidelines for CATS capital programmes, not to this article — so the art you see on the light rail belongs to a different programme.
• Who chooses. A Charlotte/Mecklenburg Public Art Commission of nine to twelve unpaid members — three appointed by the city, three by the county commissioners, the rest by the Arts & Science Council's board — selects artists, commissions work and decides where it goes. The same commission administers the county's programme under a county ordinance of 17 December 2002.
• What counts as artwork. The ordinance's own definition allows work that is "permanent, temporary, or functional", standing alone or built into the architecture or landscaping — which is why the register contains a gate, a streetscape and a set of bus shelters alongside the sculptures. It expressly excludes reproductions of original works.
• The city owns it, and can move it. Title vests in the city. Before a work is moved or removed the city must put the proposal to the commission for a recommendation — but where the two disagree, the city's decision is final.

For the collection's own account of the programme, see the Arts & Science Council.

Sources

• Mecklenburg County GIS, ASC Art Installations layer — queried directly, 14 September 2026 (titles, artists, work types, addresses, ownership, interior/exterior)
• Charlotte City Code, Chapter 15, Article IX — Public Art Program (Ord. No. 2308, 27 May 2003), read 14 September 2026
• Arts & Science Council — Public Art