Greensboro, NC, USA, December 13, 2022 - In the month of October 2022 Artist Raman Bhardwaj, painted a mural for the Charlotte Hornets, in the Spectrum Arena in Charlotte NC. The mural is installed in what is known as the Hive uptown gallery just outside the seating for the basketball fans.

This 8x10 ft mural’s was designed by artist Raman Bhardwaj aka ArtistRaman who is based in Greensboro, NC and is a known professional illustrator, muralist and designer. For this project ArtistRaman based his mural design on the Hornet’s slogan “Let’s fly” and used flat tones of their brand colors, purple and teal, in the composition. For the execution of the mural the Hornets foundation invited ten students from two local high schools of Charlotte, NC to paint along side the mural artist as a part of their community outreach program. The artist, thus designed a ‘paint-by-number’ format mural so the students can follow the directions and install this mural successfully. The students were very excited to participate. ArtistRaman along with his assistant and wife Cortni arrived before the students and traced the design on to the wall for the students to come and have fun painting.

The installation took three days in the Spectrum Arena working about 4 hours each day. Using different shades of acrylic paints the students laid the colors in the numbered shapes on the wall. Everyone was excited to see how the design will come out after all the color shapes are filled in. ArtistRaman shared tips on painting and masking to the students and demonstrated his brushwork to lay sharp straight and curvy lines. Since it was an interior mural and also involved teenage participants Artist Raman decided not to use aerosol colors which he often uses in his large-scale outdoor murals. He instead chose acrylic and latex paint to execute this mural. After the students had pitched in blocking the color, ArtistRaman and his assistant cleaned up all the geometric lines and shapes in the mural.

The design shows the words “Let’s Fly” in big letters, surrounded by swirly thick lines of purple tones and a pattern of honeycomb. And then there is the Hornets mascot (a toon hornet) flying beside the official Hornets’ burnt red basketball. The artist chose to finish the ball with realism and 3D depth to stand out against all the flat toned design. He used a pro airbrush to add the shadows and highlights to the ball to create the illusion of 3D. The students and the Artist were invited by the Charlotte Hornets to view a game on November 25th, 2022 during which the mural was unveiled on the large digital screen in the arena, the names of the artist and students were announced and they were shown on the large screen.
ArtistRaman is an award winning South Asian artist who lives in NC and he has created over 50 murals. He has won a national award in India for children book illustrations. He is recognized for his realistic style artwork as well as a unique flat-color style of art, and for the latter he won ArtPopStreet Gallery award in 2019.

About Artistraman

ArtistRaman is an art studio of Raman Bhardwaj. A one stop shop for murals, paintings, portraits, book illustrations, logo and graphic designs. Raman Bhardwaj is a South Asian illustrator, muralist, painter based in Greensboro, NC. As a muralist he paints photorealistic portraits and colorful illustrative compositions. Raman also creates photo real portraits with airbrush. As a fine artist he enjoys creating bold expressionistic paintings and figurative line drawings. He also creates digital art in a mannerist figurative style with vibrant flat tones of colors. He holds a BFA and a MA degree in Fine Arts. He has won national award in India for children book illustrations and ‘Art pop street gallery’ award in the USA.
His clients include Charlotte Hornets, Artpop Street Gallery, ArtsGreensboro, City of Greensboro, Kotis Properties,YWCA Charlotte, Deloitte Pixel, the Carolina Public Press, and many others across the globe.