Alice Lee
MVHS alum ‘09 Alice Lee hadn’t first pictured herself painting office murals — growing up in the Bay Area, Lee originally pursued business at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School, later working as a Product Designer for Dropbox. Back then, Lee’s artworks revolved around small canvases and mostly digital designs; however, this only motivated Lee to pursue bigger projects, such as murals.
“My first mural, I started painting this wall in my art studio, and there was a beautiful blank wall in one of the rooms that I shared with other artists,” Lee said. “I was like, ‘Oh, what if I could scale my drawing up to a bigger size? It would be more immersive and a better experience for the viewer of the art.’ So then I just started to paint murals.”
From coffee shops to entire buildings, Lee has created many murals, receiving commissions from all around the globe, including a recent deal signed with Uniqlo, a Japanese clothing store. She believes that making murals is unique in its physicality.
“Murals are one of my favorite art forms,” Lee said. “I feel like it’s a way that you can paint with your entire body. So it’s very athletic as well. It’s very physically strenuous, and it feels like a cool way to express myself.”
Lee adds that her art style received inspiration from cartoons and shows she watched when growing up. One of her favorite projects is her yearly custom-drawn red envelopes, a series she started in 2024. This year, her art revolves around horses, the 2026 lunar zodiac animal. To her, a piece of her cultural heritage is reflected in the art she creates now.
“Looking back and looking at my natural art style, I can totally see the influences of growing up as an Asian American in the Bay,” Lee said. “I loved watching ‘Pokémon’ and ‘Naruto’ growing up, and I think that’s actually really reflected in my art style, because I draw a lot of animals that have this fantastical look, and a lot of my characters kind of have that manga-ish look. I think you could look at my drawings and say, ‘Oh, this girl definitely watched “Sailor Moon” growing up.’”
By drawing inspiration from her roots, Lee says art has become an empowering form of self-expression. She sees the persistence that she puts into her murals as inherently beautiful, and even after corporate contracts and major projects, her purpose in creating murals remains clear and simple.
“I just hope that I can bring a bit of joy and beauty to people’s lives and the neighborhoods that I live in,” Lee said. “That’s enough for me. I feel like that’s really meaningful.”
Taylor Reinhold
Growing up surfing the waves, Santa Cruz-based muralist Taylor Reinhold’s art has always represented his appreciation for aquatic life. As a child, Reinhold would play near the Redwood Forests and his parents’ avocado and lemon orchard, instilling a deep respect for nature’s beauty at a young age.
“My mother was an artist, and my father was a surfer, fisherman and a farmer,” Reinhold said. “As a young kid, I was digging in the dirt, and every Friday I had to pick 500 pounds of lemons or avocados. I feel like it’s been in my DNA, wanting to protect the land and being a steward to keep this beautiful ecosystem thriving.”
One of Reinhold’s most ambitious projects, the Clean Oceans Mural, aims to raise awareness of the increasing amount of ocean pollution. Found on Mission Street in Santa Cruz, the mural stretches over 400 feet and features a variety of pelagic creatures. He says that toward the end of the project, local outreach and community efforts raised over $90,000 to help remove plastic from the seas.
“Murals create a platform for educators and schools after we do a project like sea walls,” Reinhold said. “They can go out and learn about these murals and read about the artist’s bio and what the public project was about. So it becomes a walking tour, an educational touring component at the same time, and people get to learn about these incredible, real local events that are happening.”
Reinhold adds that he frequently receives inquisitive questions about his art from the mural’s intended community — learning about the people impacted by his murals makes being an artist memorable. He adds that, much like a signature, murals blend the artist’s and the community’s identities.
“Murals instill curiosity in all ages,” Reinhold said. “If you’re a 5-year-old or if you’re a 75-year-old, people come up, and they just want to engage. At the end of the road, you’re beautifying a space in the neighborhood and making it look more exciting, colorful and fun. And everybody loves it.”
As a muralist who’s painted all over the globe, Reinhold says that although he’s primarily based in Santa Cruz, he believes his work bolsters a sense of community in many neighborhoods, including Jamaica and South America.
“It’s really cool to be able to jump around and just kind of insert yourself into a neighborhood, because the second you get put on the street, you become a magnet,” Reinhold said. “At first, they’re like, ‘Who is this person? What are they doing?’ Then, they start to see what you do, and they invite you over to their house. They bring you food. You really get to learn and meet people — and so it creates a bond between the artists and between the production crew and the community.”
Parnika Garg
Junior and Art Club secretary Parnika Garg sat on her floor, newspaper clippings strewn around her as she pieced together a collage. This mixed-media project for her Art 2 class consisted of two four-foot-wide mixed-media pieces, velcroed one on top of the other, covered in cutouts and drawings. Garg says the theme of the piece, what she calls the “disillusionment of adolescence,” features a divide between her younger and older self, making it one of the most personal pieces she has created for the class.
“The piece features issues with my own identity and my feelings of being older,” Garg said. “I wanted to convey comparing youth to your current or present self. When I was younger, I was definitely sheltered with everything I knew and what I learned. As I get older, I see it’s much different than what it appeared like.”
Garg says that although she has been focusing on digital art, she hopes to create more of these larger physical pieces in the future, as they offer the opportunity for a more personal touch and greater potential for exposure as an artist. Already, she attributes much of the community she has found to art.
“I only have my parents and my siblings, so I never really had anyone to share my art with like that,” Garg said. “Online, I found a huge community of people who talked to me, and at school as well, I found a lot of friends just through art when I first came to the school. It was really fun talking to other people about what I drew and what they drew, and what they think about the media that they used.”
As a self-taught artist and volunteer at CalColor, a Bay Area art school, Garg says that murals aren’t inherently harder to create — diving in and getting practice bridges the gap between smaller art forms and huge ones.
“I think people get in their heads,” Garg said. “I got in my head, thinking, ‘It’s too much work,’ or, ‘I don’t really know what to do.’ Once you get rid of that fear, I think anyone could pull it off. I always think to myself that painting or drawing isn’t inherently hard. No one starts well. So just do it. You don’t need any prior experience. You don’t need any rules. Just do whatever you want and convey your own emotions.”
