Contemporary murals have become powerful tools for social commentary, cultural expression, and community engagement. From their first forms as storytelling in cave paintings, murals went on to become regarded as the highest form of painting in Renaissance Italy, later rooting into the public polyphony with the rise of the muralist movement, murals have served as a tool for communities to express shared ideals and values – a creative means to inform a large public.
Often emerging in urban environments, these artworks breathe life into walls, grounds and facades, fostering an engaged sense of belonging. Murals that magnify quotidian moments, tender feelings we share amongst one another, honour unsung heroes, or spotlight social injustices – they take their place as vital instruments for public discourse. The following artists use countless inventive techniques to achieve their striking visuals, sparking thought and conversations. These murals, vibrant, complex, and ever-changing, are not just decorative but deeply meaningful, shaping how we see our neighbourhoods and ourselves.
Marcin Maciejowski
For the 17th artistic covering of Vienna’s Ringturm – the headquarters of the Austrian major international insurance group, Marcin Maciejowski created Linking Tales, using 30 printed netting sheets. The piece opens up onto a cosy, intimate view of a person’s home – rows of bookshelves larger than the neighbours’ windows reimagine the building as a library towering over the Danube. The backside of the Ringturm carries this message in both German and Polish: “This book won’t just become my story, but yours, too”. Pinpointing the exact moment when an idea is transferred between people, the man picks out a book from his shelves to share with us. As books open portals to other worlds, they build bridges between cultures and experiences; similarly, Linking Tales is conceptualised as the meeting point of personal and public life.
Kraków-based Maciejowski (b. 1974) studied architecture, followed by a graphic art degree at the Kraków Academy of Fine Arts. He creates through a variety of different media, like painting, drawing, and posters, as well as comics and art in public spaces. He blends daily observations, pop culture, and art history, boldly simplifying his figures, yet retaining artistic precision, sourcing new visual languages.
Linking Tales covers the Ringturm only for summer 2025.
Yessiow
Yessi Nur Mulianawati, a muralist and illustrator from Bali, goes by the artist pseudonym Yessiow. The title of her piece, Titik Temu, translates to “meeting point” from Indonesian, and presents the journey of connection, recognition, and solidarity. The two women portrayed in the mural are gently reaching out to one another and finding each other in a moment of quiet strength. They could be either reflections of one another or complete strangers, but between them lies a powerful gesture of empathy and shared experience.
Inspired by Indonesia’s street art scene, Yessiow turns her gaze towards women – long existing on the margins of a male-dominated space. The palpable tension between visibility and invisibility, present, but not always acknowledged or seen, she began to carve out space not just for herself, but for others who have also questioned whether they belonged. In this, both personal and collective work, the artist paints a tribute to women around the world – “artists whose courage and creativity have shaped the global street art movement in ways that often go unacknowledged”, says Yessiow. “Their presence continues to inspire me”. The work is part of The Crystal Ship, a festival taking place in Oostende, Belgium.
Lonac
Lonac’s mural Nedjeljno (Sundays) at the Meraki Mural Fest in Bijeljina, Bosnia and Herzegovina, is part of the artist’s ongoing series inspired by the Hrelić flea market in his hometown of Zagreb. Reflecting a broader culture of Balkan flea markets, the painted scenes are collaged compositions made from photographs he takes during his visits to the market every Sunday. The scenes are spontaneous, retaining their authenticity – most of the people in the photos weren’t aware they were being photographed. In this way, Lonac combines the journalistic quality of street photography and his own artistic expression to offer glimpses of humans, objects, and furniture, painting impressions of quotidian interminglings.
Lonac (1987) graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts of the University of Zagreb. His work spans intricate drawings, illustrations, and paintings, as well as monumental-scale site-specific murals that can be found not only in Croatia but also in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia, Sweden, North Macedonia, Morocco, France, Belgium, Portugal, and Turkey.
Anetta Lukjanova
Helsinki-based visual artist Anetta Lukjanova works in the style of contemporary magical realism. The main underlying themes of her pieces are the universal human experiences. These she makes visible through her fascination with 19th-century oil painting, the art nouveau movement and folklore, which she also intertwines with references from comics and animation of the 1990s-2000s. In this way, her visual language constructs a network of associations that aim to evade a singular linear story.
For the Rexenera Festival in Carballo, Spain, Lukjanova tackled the folklore of the Basilisk, commonly known since medieval times as the king of snakes capable of killing with its gaze. Only two known animals are able to stand against the creature: a weasel and a rooster, one that also gave birth to the beast. Her piece depicts a final battle – a few hours before sunrise, the crow of the rooster provokes the death of the Basilisk. Both protagonists classically stand for several attributes–courage and vigilance against cunningness and intelligence.
Lukjanova has been painting large-scale murals since 2017 and has exhibited her work and executed public wall paintings both in Finland and abroad, e.g. Belgium, Norway, Switzerland, France, Australia, Russia, and Spain. Lukjanova graduated from the Barcelona Academy of Art in 2019 and is currently in the Academy of Fine Arts in Helsinki, Finland.
Zéh Palito
Zéh Palito is a storyteller and cultural observer who provides insight into contemporary African diasporic life. His work, We Swam Against Their Waves, which was part of Montreal’s Mural Festival, paints a scene of foliage, jewellery, cars, and objects, amidst which vibrant figures become the focal point of his work and the protagonists of their own stories. The figures in his practice embody a stance of power, illustrating a positive self-identity and paying homage to a rich cultural heritage, demonstrating confidence, satisfaction, and self-assurance simply through existing. Palito pairs bright, joyful colours with the trauma and sorrow of marginalised communities in his paintings, focusing on individuals, intimately depicting them in sync with their surroundings. With dramatic shifts in scale and highly saturated colours, the artist proposes wondrous utopian visions for the future.
The artist works across very different scales, from ambitious site-specific murals to small-scale figurative works on canvas. In parallel with his commitment to the environment, elevating, inspiring, and celebrating underrepresented voices is a fundamental element of his practice – an implicit suggestion that the two issues go hand in hand. Palito aims to promote a relationship of mutual respect and pleasure between humans and the natural world, often drawing inspiration from Brazilian, African and American cultures. His murals can be found in over 30 countries across Africa, Asia, the Americas, and Europe.
Daniela Guerreiro
Portuguese artist Daniela Guerreiro painted Flora for the 10th edition of Graffitea Cheste, Valencia’s international street art festival. The piece was born from Guerreiro’s contemplations on self-knowledge as the first steps towards acceptance, which holds the potential to grow into inner freedom. Seeing oneself truthfully; becoming aware of what we show the world and simultaneously, of what we carry within, creates this intimate space between appearance and essence.
She surveys these themes through the recurring presence of the mirror in her work – focal as a symbol of confrontation and revelation. Its inviting surface challenges us to look inward and face ourselves honestly, beyond the reflected image. Essentially dropping a carefully carved facade, and instead recognising the vulnerabilities and imperfections that build us. Ultimately, Flora portrays a contemplative and intimate reflection on vulnerability and the humanity we can find in each of us.
In her figurative paintings, Daniela Guerreiro tackles the themes of acceptance, diversity and introspection, both in individual and collective experiences. Aiming to represent reality, keeping it raw and truthful, she magnifies the confidence and energy of human experiences in their diversity. She normalises bodies escaping social norms by placing them in intimate situations of care, working towards painting a healthier relationship with body image, beauty, and authenticity.
SATR
Originally from Guangzhou, Satr (or SATR) is an artist and tattooist now based in London. Her work explores the tension between tradition and experimentation, with visual language blending delicacy with boldness through ink and wash, achieving a balance between the boldness of Western graffiti and the delicate brush strokes of Eastern painting. Through techniques like spray paint atomisation and transparent graffiti layers, she depicts animals which feel fluid, dynamic, fleeting, and alive. Satr often reflects on identity, heritage, and the evolving relationship between nature and modern urban life.
Her new piece in Zunyi, China, tackles form and formlessness, where she takes an intuitive approach to painting, letting chance and immediacy lead and balance the relationship between figurative and abstract. Experimenting with reducing the physical form of the tiger, it appears both more fragmented and more whole – an exciting new direction for the artist, which she plans to explore more moving forward.
Involved in street art since 2013, she has developed an original technique of using spray paint atomisation that characterises her paintings with a wispy, smoky character, yet simultaneously rendering them sharpness and clarity. She also extensively experiments with transparent graffiti spray paint, setting her work apart from traditional Chinese painting styles. The strong Eastern Asian tone of her work is further acknowledged by her use of ancient seal-engraved signatures.
Kezna Dalz
Montreal-based multidisciplinary artist Kezna Dalz created a mural for Montreal’s Mural Festival, which aims to celebrate the city and its bright, vibrant energy and people. In her painting, two abstract figures are turning towards flowers and the sun, embodying the inner impulse to appreciate beauty. She comments on the resilience that stems from surrounding oneself with beauty and taking the time to admire it – her mural visually merging both the beauty carried by nature and the arts. Emotions and vulnerability are an important part of her process.
Raw features and bright colours are characteristic of Dalz’s work – motifs through which she explores themes of feminism, the fight against racism, popular culture and the relationship with sexuality. By tackling heavy and sometimes difficult topics and framing them through the lens of her pastel, soft universe of naive features, these subjects are rendered more approachable and accessible.
HOXXOH
Douglas Hoekzema is a street artist and painter, also known as HOXXOH. His recent piece with the Kansas Health Foundation brings forth the notion that health is more than just physical. Focusing on balance, connection, and the unseen patterns that link us all, ideas of health move towards interconnectivity – the spirals in the mural echo one another, just like our actions echo out into the world and the future.
This piece was made with his rainbird technique. With gardening hoses and nozzles, he creates with a special technique of pressurised spray paint application. The technique itself requires trusting the process, letting go of control, and surrendering to gravity, time, and rhythm. It’s all about flow: letting the motion and paint guide him. These multiple massive paintings can be found in Wichita, Kansas, USA, as a reminder to slow down, breathe, and let things move through you. ”Health isn’t static”, Hoekzema says. “It’s a living, breathing thing”.
Born and raised in Miami’s vibrant street art scene, he finds inspiration in the natural world and concepts of time, order, and chaos. The artist paints captivating, kaleidoscope-like pieces that delve into the crossroads of chance, harmony, and controlled chaos. His work turns ordinary surfaces into vivid, ever-evolving gateways, using bold colours and fluid patterns to mirror life’s natural rhythms and cycles, effectively fusing creative experimentation with a deep, meditative philosophy.
Megan Oldhues
Toronto-based artist Megan Oldhues has mastered figurative and representational mural work at a monumental scale. She observes intimate daily moments, inspired by her personal photographs, that she grows into evocative scenes, aiming to grasp the beauty of daily life. She blends impressionism and realism, rendering her fascination with human connection, the mess of human nature, and the quiet resonance of familiar spaces palpable.
Her mural, Packing Up, is an answer to this year’s edition of The Crystal Ship Oostende and its theme of change. Tangibly highlighting this, she zooms into the process of packing up, and the endless motion of moving forward, moving onward – in this way, focusing on the physical remnants of transition: memories, oddities, walls of boxes. Oldhues currently practices mural creation internationally with work in over seven countries.
