Paul Goodnight honored, depicted in mural
Renowned artist feted as group unveils Nubiana murals
Legendary local artist Paul Goodnight was given his own day Sept. 4 at a celebration of Nubiana Murals, an outdoor museum of building facades in Nubian Square.
Kai Grant, co-owner of Black Market, read a proclamation from acting mayor Kim Janey recognizing Goodnight’s decades-long commitment to Black art and culture.
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Goodnight took the opportunity to recognize that Nubiana was nothing less than young Black street artists following the trail that he and Dana Chandler, Gary Rickson and others blazed 40 years ago.
He pointed to Rob “ProBlak” Gibbs, Stephen Harvey, Victor “Marka27” Quiñonez, Chanel Thervill and Mattaya Fitts, all of whom had spent the last month high above Washington Street painting enormous murals on the walls of buildings around the Black Market building.
Stephen Hamilton began on July 31 to sketch out the largest artwork of his career with “1000 Hooves” showing various African tribes on muscled horses racing across the wall of 2168 Washington St.
On the building’s opposite wall, facing the Blair lot, ProBlak and Marka27 painted their huge collaboration called “Reflections Eternal,” in which Goodnight himself is illustrated.
Women are underrepresented in street art and Nubiana Murals producer Liza Quiñonez wanted to change that.
Thervill and Fitts were commissioned to create the colorful and abstract “Between Wind and Water” painted on a billboard-sized panel suspended from a lattice frame attached to the purple wall of 2136 Washington St.
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Working day and night, the four artists completed their work by the end of August.
Nubiana Murals also includes 40 smaller-scale murals painted by artists-in-waiting on 4-by-5-foot boards propped against the Back Market yard fence.
Nubiana Murals was part of the third year of the city’s Transformative Public Art Program.
In 2021, the Mayor’s Office of Arts and Culture awarded $324,000 to 27 public art projects.
The BPDA contributed $50,000 to Nubiana Murals and Amazon, Shawmut Design and Construction, and the Museum of Fine Arts also funded the Black Market project.
