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About the Artwork
Photo credit Max Dowdle
Turning Phrases / Girando Frases is an interactive poetic wall, located at Southgate Park, that explores the tension and harmony between English and Spanish through playful language. Viewers rotate blocks to reveal shifting, fiveword lines—alternating by row between the two languages. The result is a living, bilingual poem that changes with each touch. Using vibrant colors and lyrical fragments poet Morrow Dowdle and artist Max Dowdle invite reflection, spontaneity, and connection across linguistic boundaries.
Location: The artwork is located on the side of the community center at Southgate Park, 1801 Proctor Street, Raleigh, NC.
About the Artist
Max Dowdle is a seventh-generation North Carolinian painter, muralist, and public artist whose work explores language, identity, and the shifting landscapes of human connection. Based in Raleigh, he has built a successful career blending fine art practice with large-scale community murals and commercial commissions, bringing in over a decade of experience creating immersive visual environments. Trained as both a painter and draftsman, Dowdle works primarily with paint, surface, and structure, often merging figuration with abstraction to create layered, narrative-driven compositions. His artistic journey began in a family of artists and craftspeople, further shaped by study and exhibition. Deeply committed to public engagement, Dowdle's murals and installations aim to spark energy, dialogue, and wonder in everyday spaces. His work embraces both beauty and tension, using color,form, and interactivity to reveal hidden stories, and open new ways of seeing.
About the Poet
For Morrow Dowdle, poetry is an act of radical attention, a way to interpret and reenvision the world. They are the author of the poetry chapbook Hardly (Bottlecap Press, 2024 ), and their poems have been featured in literary journals since 2008. Their work is a blend of narrative and lyrical, often focusing on themes of social and familial relationships, what unites and divides. They received their
B.A. in art history in 2002 and have maintained a deep interest in visual as well as literary arts, cocurating various exhibits since 2010 which bring both art forms together. Since 2023, they have run a performance series in Hillsborough, NC called "Weave & Spin," which features historically marginalized voices. Mostly self-taught as a poet, they will begin their creative writing MFA at Spalding University in fall 2025. Originally from New Jersey, they now call Durham, NC home.