Graffiti News

A mural titled 'Beauty of Essence' has been unveiled on the west-facing wall of Celebrity's Beauty Supply on Harrison Street in Davenport, Iowa. According to the Quad-City Times, Rock Island artist Zay Williams painted it in August 2026, and on Friday, September 4 he and the store's owners spoke about the work outside the shop.

What is on the wall

The Quad-City Times describes a bright, multicoloured mural of a woman with a short afro and a hair pick, with a cityscape to her right in which the buildings take the shape of shampoo and conditioner bottles. The products sold inside the store become the skyline outside it. Quad City Arts partially funded the project, and Brian Kramer, executive director of the Hilltop Campus Village, thanked former Davenport alderwoman Marion McGinnis for dedicating city beautification funds to it.

The artist and the neighbourhood

Williams told the Quad-City Times he felt honoured to bring a mural representing creativity and vibrancy to a Black-owned business. Neighbours approached him regularly while he worked. "One of the most uplifting parts of this process was random people would come up to me and tell me how much they appreciate my work, give me water because it was hot, and different things to help me complete the task," he said. "It was amazing to see the community come out."

Lonnie Westerfield, who owns the store with his wife Constance, said the mural has created a safe space for children walking to school. He has seen young kids playing and filming TikTok videos next to a wall that previously had no colour. "It gives them that safety net," he said.

There is already a mural inside

According to the Quad-City Times, the Westerfields commissioned an interior mural from Williams last November. It hangs in the store's cafe and depicts Malcolm X, Martin Luther King Jr. and C.J. Walker, described in the report as the country's first self-made female millionaire, with several other Williams pieces nearby. Walker built her fortune in hair care; her portrait is inside a beauty supply store, and a woman with a hair pick is on the wall outside. Inside and outside share one subject.

Turning the parking lot into a venue

Kramer said Williams created a "sense of place" for the neighbourhood. "People have said it's wonderful we're putting color back into this neighborhood. We're putting arts back into this neighborhood," he told the Quad-City Times. He added that the mural supports the Hilltop Campus Village's plan to activate the store's parking lot for public events, food trucks and music.

Why it matters for street art

This is not a landmark in a big city. It is the side wall of a small shop, and that is the point. The subject matches the owner of the wall exactly: hair picks and shampoo bottles on a beauty supply store, a hair-care entrepreneur's portrait inside. And the owners and the neighbourhood association treat the mural not as a finished object but as the first step in changing how the parking lot is used. A painted wall draws people; people in a parking lot make it a venue.

Plenty of commercial-district murals are painted with no connection to the building they sit on. Davenport shows the alternative: start from who owns the wall. If you photograph it, or a shop mural in your own neighbourhood, you can pin it on the Wallscape map, and the feed collects storefront work from other cities.

Source: Quad-City Times, "Celebrity's Beauty Supply unveils mural on Harrison Street"