Love art? These must-see murals bring added color, history to Orange County

They bring buildings, walls and even parking structures to life with the stories of Orange County through splashes of vibrant colors where there was only gray.

Some of the county’s murals were painted decades ago and tell the rich history of towns and the people who made their mark on the community. Other murals have gone up in recent years, adding to the character and identities of the places they now call home.

“Every work of art tells a story,” Arts Orange County President and CEO Richard Stein said. “It enriches our lives through the ability to see what would otherwise be a blank space, animated with color or story telling.”

Murals are often created in conjunction with a city’s public art program, with more than 1,368 art pieces cataloged so far, Stein said. And, that number is constantly changing, he noted, with some art added and others taken away over time.

Santa Ana is home to the most public art in the county, while Brea has the oldest Art in Public Places program, dating back to the ’70s. Irvine, a city with a reputation for its beige-and-tan hues, just finished a Public Art Master plan, done in conjunction with Arts OC.

Among the public artwork are hundreds of murals on walls throughout Orange County – some large, some small, some old, some new.

While it would be tough to visit them all, we did a quick list of a few must-know murals and a few unexpected, off-the-beaten path pieces you might enjoy checking out.

Emigdio Vasquez’s Cypress Street, Orange

When you talk about Orange County’s murals, there must be a mention of Emigdio Vasquez, an American-Chicano artist who painted 32 murals across its northern cities.

Vasquez, who considered himself a “social realist” painter, drew from everyday life, usually working class life, with scenes captured through portraits, still life images and murals.

“Through my art, I want to convey a powerful sense of the human struggle for dignity within the urban experience of 20th century America,” he once said.

His artwork challenged the perception that Orange County was made up of wealthy coastal communities, his art instead showcasing the rich Chicano culture found throughout the county.

Stein called Vasquez “one of the most famous muralists in Orange County,” saying his murals are “beautiful, realistic and they are boldly colored.”

“Often he will tell a story, he will have figures in them, historic figures such as Ceasar Chavez or they represent early settlers in Santa Ana, farm laborers,” Stein said.

Vasquez’s work has started to deteriorate, but there’s an effort underway to restore any in disrepair, Stein said. His own family have used their talents to help.

Among Vasquez’s most famous work is the “El Proletariado de Aztlan,” a 60-foot-long Cypress Street mural that wraps around a building in Orange between Walnut and Sycamore avenues, illustrating 450 years of Mexican American history.

Dream Court: Pearson Park Basketball Court, Anaheim

More than 600 murals can be found around the world paying tribute to NBA star Kobe Bryant, who along with his daughter, Gianna, died in a helicopter crash in 2020.

Several are in Orange County, where the Bryant family lived for several years in Newport Beach.

In 2022, at a basketball court in Anaheim’s Pearson Park, a “Dream Court” was created with tiles in the royal purple and gold of the Los Angeles Lakers used for the playing surface. At the center court, a white circle surrounded by purple butterflies is inscribed with the names of Kobe Bryant and his daughter Gianna. On one side of the court is a large butterfly-shaped mural of their faces, created by artist Brian Peterson.

The court and sculpture were funded by former WNBA player Nancy Lieberman’s charity and Vanessa Bryant’s Mamba and Mambacita Sports Foundation.

Art under the freeway, Placentia

Los Angeles graffiti artist Alejandro “Man One” Poli Jr. painted the sloped walls under the 57 Freeway at West Crowther Avenue in Placentia – a project to beautify the 10,730-square-foot stretch.

The artwork is “based on the mythology of the sun and the moon and how it relates to our current views on housing, shelter and community,” the artist said in 2023 when he finished the work.

When the city cleared the area of a homeless encampment, Poli was commissioned for the Placentia Gateway Public Art Project, done in collaboration with the Clean California Initiative through Caltrans, which commits $1.2 billion toward road and neighborhood beautification projects.

Poli’s piece in the tunnel is called “Good People Under Our Sun and Moon.”

The moon side of the underpass, in hues of pink and purple, features an abstract outline of a woman sleeping and dreaming. The sun side hosts shades of blue with a splash of “Solar Energy” yellow.  An abstract man is crouching and holding up the weight of the world.

Stein called Poli one of the most celebrated graffiti artists in Southern California.

“If you’re driving though this underpass on the 57, you’re not in a museum, you’re not in a gallery or browsing art in a building – this art hits you,” Stein said. “In 10 seconds you have an art experience without having to stop and study it.”

“Home Sweet Home,” Costa Mesa

On the exterior of a campus building at First United Methodist Church of Costa Mesa, Brian Peterson, known for his “Faces of Santa Ana,” created artwork that encourages a humanizing look at people experiencing homelessness.

The “Home Sweet Home” mural illustrates a furnished family room with a yellow couch and side chair, potted plant in the corner. Having on the wall is a portrait of Robert Morse, a former homeless man who now helps others without shelter.

A portion of a couch protrudes from the mural, allowing people to sit “in” the home and take photos. Another side of the building asks, “What solves homelessness?”

The historic Costa Mesa church, founded in 1912, donated its public space for the mural.

“Among Heroes,” Santa Ana

Artist Carlos Aguilar, on the side of the popular La Chiquita Restaurant, pays homage to 160 Mexican-American soldiers who fought in World War II with a 20-by-34-foot mural, “Among Heroes.” 

Aguilar studied graphic design at Saddleback College and started doing murals in Santa Ana in the mid-2000s.

It was in 2012 when the artist started painting his vision, and it wasn’t long before veterans and their families were bringing their photos, asking to be added to the wall.

The mural at Washington Avenue and Custer Street has become more than a work of art since its debut in 2016, evolving into a place for veterans and their families to gather, a classroom for college students and a place to learn about the some 500,000 Mexican-Americans who helped during the war.

Whale Walk, Dana Point

There’s no shortage of whale paintings splashed across the coastal parts of Orange County. The likely most well known found in Laguna Beach, marine artist Wyland’s first-ever Whaling Wall, recently recreated at the Pacific Coast Highway home of his gallery to depict the original painted in 1981.

But head down to Doheny State Beach in Dana Point to find a lesser-known whale mural, not on a wall, but on the sidewalk of the popular beach boardwalk just steps from the ocean.

Former State Parks ranger Jim Serpa, volunteers and art students have been maintaining the Whale Walk since it was first painted 1995, showing up every few years when the marine mammals fade and need touchups.

All the whales that pass by in nearby waters – the gray whales, blues, orcas and humpbacks – are depicted on the walkway.

“The blue whale is the best we’ve ever done, it looks phenominal,” Serpa said last week following a spruce up of the whale paintings.

The whales are painted life-size on the ground, so beachgoers can see just how large the sea creatures can grow to become.

“Pleasures Along the Beach,” Orange

“Pleasures Along the Beach” by Millard Sheets is a massive mosaic mural that is both old and new – find it on the exterior of Chapman University’s Hilbert Museum of California Art in Orange.

The mural depicting a California beach scene was created in 1969 on the side of a Home Savings & Loan branch in Santa Monica.

After the branch closed, the glass-and-tile mosaic spent years broken into its pieces so it could fit in storage. But last year, the 40-by-16-foot artwork was unveiled at the Old Towne Orange museum, part of a vast collection of artwork donated by philanthropists Mark and Janet Hilbert.

The artist, who had worked decades earlier for Sheets, including on this mural, had to piece back thousands of squares of glass and tile, a painstaking task to get the puzzle back together.

“Welcome Home” by Shepard Fairey, Costa Mesa

You can’t miss the 55-foot-tall mural “Welcome Home,” with its red, blue, yellow and white backdrop on the side of a Costa Mesa apartment complex just off the 55 freeway.

The artwork was completed in 2017 by renowned street artist Shepard Fairey, known for his OBEY art campaign and the clothing brand with the same name, born in Costa Mesa.

A woman with a lotus flower in her hair is framed by blocks of color, with silhouette palm trees and a blue curling wave. There’s also a dove and surfers riding waves on the 7,000-square-foot canvas, located at Baker Block apartments, the artwork commissioned by developer CityView, which brought Fairey into the project to beautify the walls of the 240-unit complex.

The mural required 460 cans of spray paint and stretches 136 feet wide.

Olympic surfers, San Clemente

The sky’s colors scream a vibrant red and orange, contrasted with the deep and teal blues of the ocean. There’s the iconic San Clemente pier that cuts through the painting, and, of course, the surfers shredding the waves on American flag-themed boards.

The painting is an ode to the first-ever Olympic competition, held in Tokyo in 2021, and two local surfers who were among the first to compete for Team USA.

Riding the waves are San Clemente’s former World Tour surfer Kolohe Andino and Florida-born Caroline Marks, who has made the beach town her home the past decade. (If Marks’ name sounds familiar, it’s because she went on to win a gold medal at the second Olympic surf competition over the summer in Tahiti.)

It takes a bit of searching to find the artwork tucked in an alleyway on the side of Nomads Canteen restaurant, but once you stumble upon it, you can’t help but be mesmerized by the piece.

It was created by local San Clemente artist and surfer Jeff Lukasik, who said at the time he wanted the piece to be immersive.

“It’s such a big wall, I want people to be able to stand in front of it and feel like you’re in the ocean with these two surfers,” he said after spending weeks painting the mural in 2021. “It just represents San Clemente in a cool way.”

Flight at Tustin Legacy – Tustin

It could have just been an ordinary parking structure – but the developers of Flight at Tustin Legacy off Barranca Parkway in Tustin wanted something bold.

Three gigantic, multi-story murals were painted at mixed-use building, done by artists John Park, Bunnie Reiss and Josh “Shag” Agle.

The artwork helped the development project win the Outstanding Public Arts award from Arts Orange County. The building is near Red Hill Avenue.

Second Harvest, Irvine

On one side, a man holds a bag of oranges and a woman cradles a head of lettuce. On the other side, a boy and girl clutch a bag of apples and a bunch of celery.

The people in the images are real people who have been served by the Second Harvest Food Bank.

The two-story mural at the Irvine distribution center was created in 2021 by New York-based artist Sarah Rutherford to showcase Second Harvest’s commitment to getting fresh, nutritious food to those in need.

“Mission Garden,” San Juan Capistrano

The mural decorating the Ortega Capistrano Trading Post is a reproduction of the painting “Mission Garden — San Juan Capistrano” by Orange County artist and rancher Nellie Gail Moulton.

The 12-by-15-foot mural depicts a plein air landscape at the nearby mission that Moulton painted around 1920, a way for The Alliance of San Juan Art, a local art organization, to bring art history back to San Juan Capistrano.

“The Nellie Gail mural provides a visual testament to the art, culture and long history of this town that is so unusual for Southern California,” said the organization’s founder Rich Heimann, when the mural was unveiled in 2023. “The mural promotes local tourism as it inspires visitors to walk a short distance for a rare experience: A view of the same vista of the Mission she painted 100 years ago in an almost unchanged courtyard.”

Check out  ArtsOC Public Art Directory around Orange County here.