About the Maker

My name is Colleen Gnos, I’m a professional artist, surfer, upright bass player, a wife, mother of 2 teen boys, and cancer survivor. I started painting when I was 12, studied fine art in college, then went to an Italian art school for a year. After graduation from UC Santa Cruz, I began painting sets and backdrops for theater, which bridged the gap from a canvas to a large scale work of art. It was a natural transition into murals.

All of my murals are private or public art commissions, which generally follow a predetermined theme. Luckily, people find me because my work is driven by my love of the ocean and my connection to it, so the subject matter is a natural fit for me. My mission is to make art that touches people, heals communities and inspires ocean advocacy.

My Portuguese ancestors were sea captains in the Azores. My grandfather immigrated to Avila Beach, CA in the 1920s. He went diving for lost anchors, had an abalone diving business, trained U.S. Navy divers, and started a tugboat business to guide oil tankers into port. I learned environmental advocacy and the value of local history from him.

Much of my fine art depicts rugged divers, timeworn boats, seaside cliffs, tikis and mermaid sirens. I also have other subjects in my paintings: agricultural tributes, local jazz musicians, and land preservation and memorial murals.

I think the secret to my longevity in the arts is that so I’m excited about many different subjects, it’s difficult (and boring) for me to commit to one theme for long, although I will always have a lifelong fascination with the sea. Luckily I have a collector base that will follow me on my tangents.

I have a studio warehouse in San Luis Obispo, where I work daily on commissions, project bids and proposals. I often create murals in sections in my studio and install them onsite. I’m fortunate to have a very technical and handy husband who helps me on all of my murals. We did a free-standing mural in 2018 that required us to use a tractor to aug out 6’ deep holes, pour concrete and install a large structure to support the 20×20’ mural alongside Interstate 80 near Dixon, CA.

About the Maker

My name is Abdoulaye Conde and I am a full-time creative working as a muralist, visual artist, multi-instrumentalist, and singer-songwriter. I was born and raised in Guinea, West Africa, from my experience and love of my country and culture I get much of my inspiration for my music and art. My unique style of art is what I call “Gnabassan”, which means “mix” in my native language of Malinke – it is recognizable from my use of bright, bold colors with interconnected branching system of black lines to make a statement and evoke emotion. I primarily utilize acrylic medium. I am multi-lingual – speaking fluently in French, Malinke, Pulaar, and Susu, and currently learning English as I am now based in Chicago, Illinois with my wife and son.

About the Maker

My name is Jason T. Graves, muralist, designer and printmaker. I have spent the majority of my life practicing and creating art in many mediums and areas of focus. I began my formal art training at a young age and later went on to graduate from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago. I’ve worked as a professional artist for almost 25 years. Most of my experience came by way of the screen print shop that I opened in 2006, Apollo Ink. The shop is located in Boulder, Colorado. It’s also where I have studio space and do business as Covalent Art / Mural Company. My work ranges from commercial art, printmaking, studio painting, digital art and most notably large scale public art / murals. I consider myself to be a fine artist and not to be limited to a certain style. I currently paint a lot of nonobjective, geometric, abstract works with the occasional implementation of realistic and or stylized subject matter.

About the Maker

The Voorhees Art Collective is composed of the husband and wife team, Tyler and Ashley Voorhees. Tyler has an art degree and has been a full-time artist for eight years and counting, and primarily works in collage and painting. Ashley holds business and graphic design degrees and has been steering the rudder of their art business since its inception. Together, they collaborate on large art projects consisting of murals and sculpture along with the upbringing of their progeny.

Since 2015, Tyler has been studying the history of work through The Jobs of Yesteryear, a series of mixed media paintings that depict historic jobs using his distinctly lanky figures. As a product of these studies, Tyler has completed 295 paintings and gathered countless fascinating stories about how the life of the worker has radically changed in the past two centuries.

Bringing this theme into the realm of public art, Tyler and Ashley launched  The Jobs Project  in 2018, which celebrates and honors the world’s workers through murals and sculpture. So far, they’ve completed eight projects: seven murals in the US and abroad (Morocco, Mexico, Belgium) and The Lamplighter Sculpture, a towering 11-foot interactive piece.  By creating these pieces, they aspire to tell the unique stories of each community’s jobs and how the community’s workers have shaped their cities, towns, and villages.

About the Maker

My name is Tori, I’m a 26 year old artist and muralist based in upstate NY. I’m self taught and have been freelancing for almost 3 years now.

I first began painting murals back in 2020. I had a desire to create larger than life works, but aside from the financial challenge that poses, I hated the disconnect between artists and the public felt within a gallery space. Murals provided me with both a creative and social outlet in addition to paying the bills.

I still don’t consider myself much of a painter; outside of public art most of my work is rendered with colored pencil. My mural style was developed via trial and error, adopting a similar mixed media approach to walls that I use for wood panel pieces. I work in layers of washes (diluted bucket paint), spraypaint, and a mix of matt and gloss colors to create a hyper- real look.