2026 MURALS

Some stories echo through history.

Others deserve to be amplified.

In the summer of 2026, twelve Baltimore artists were selected to interpret the voices, histories, and movements that have shaped, and continue to shape, the City of Baltimore. The murals you see here are the result of those interpretations, brought to life by six teams of artists. Together, they reect the many stories that make Baltimore what it is: a city shaped by its past, animated by its present, and always imagining what comes next.

Click the down arrow next to each title to learn more about the mural!

  • by PRO G. Pack, assisted by Rising Star Victoire

    “This mural, created collaboratively by myself and my mentee, Victoire, highlights Baltimore artist and professor Ernest Shaw through a portrait that explores the tension between human creativity and an increasingly surveilled world.


    Shaw’s work throughout Baltimore, including a mural near where I live, reflects a deep engagement with Black culture, African artistic traditions, and the discipline of traditional art-making. Those ideas inform our decision to place his figure in a body of water, a space that represents grief, reflection, and emotional depth. Around him swim mechanical creatures modeled after surveillance cameras, referencing the growing presence of automated surveillance in our everyday lives.


    The imagery asks what happens to human expression when everything is being observed, recorded, and translated into data. In this sense, Shaw becomes less a symbol of perfection than a figure through whom we can consider the value of handmade art, cultural memory, and creative resistance.


    For us, “Echoes and Amplifiers” speaks to how artistic traditions are carried forward and amplified through teaching, mentorship, public art, and community. The mural reflects an exchange between generations: what we inherit, what we question, and what we choose to amplify.”

  • by PRO danamarie hosler, assisted by Rising Star Kayla Bae

    “This mural is a conversation about the history of medical racism; the echoes that persist and the amplifiers that will help us imagine a fairer future for medicine.


    At the center of the story is Henrietta Lacks, whose cells changed modern medicine. Her story reminds us of the exploitation and erasure faced by Black patients and other underrepresented groups. She stands as a symbol of the many contributions of Black Baltimoreans and Americans that have gone unnoticed and of the ongoing call for recognition, dignity, and justice.


    In front of her stands a young girl, representing the future of medicine. This new generation will enter a field shaped by both scientific progress and a stronger focus on fairness. Her lab coat pulls fibers from a quilt—a symbol of generational torch-passing, ancestral gift-giving and legacy.


    Henrietta Lacks and the young girl together embody an ideal for medicine in which diversity is valued, history is respected, patients have a voice, and science helps everyone— a more equitable future where lessons from the past lead to compassion, responsibility, and real change.”

  •  by PRO Art of Solidarity, assisted by Rising Star The Curious Creative

    “She is the strong and hopeful immigrant-American woman head-of-household who lost and continue to lose their husbands and partners due to tragedy. Her courage and faith stand firm despite grief, threats, and disappointment in a garden overseeing the Patapsco River. Seven construction worker’s helmets radiate around her. The sole survivor’s helmet shines a light like a beacon, fighting for life beyond the collapse of the Francis Scott Key Bridge. The Bridge is broken but the light persists to stay on despite the 185 ft’ fall, plunging into 50’ of water in 46 degrees Fahrenheit, despite not knowing how to swim, despite not having enough protections for the other workers who died in the cold and dark that night. Their legacy as Marylanders are brushed on brick. Their heritages are represented as flags of armour from El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras and Mexico, honoring their families and roots. A Black lab mix dog on the bottom right corner, grounds the story as a symbol of eternal and unconditional familial love between two worlds, transcending life and death in Baltimore, Maryland in 2024.


    Maria Gabriela Aldana is an oral historian who recorded 32 stories of those most impacted by the collapse. This mural honors the family members of the six victims and the sole survivor who are “Surviving the Key Bridge.”

  • by PRO Camila Leão, assisted by Rising Star Bunny Blu33

    “"Pass the Mic" is about the energy that moves between generations, subcultures, communities, and different ways of seeing the world. An older hand passes a microphone to a younger one. Electricity and water surround them, colliding in a catastrophically amazing reaction. It’s a little chaotic, a little psychedelic, and very much about what happens when different influences come together. What we inherit isn’t meant to stay still. It gets transformed, remixed, and passed on in ways we can’t always predict.


    Music is the language connecting the mural in all kinds of ways: keyboards, knobs, a boombox, and a DJ table nod to Baltimore’s musical roots and the legacy of DJ K-Swift. Brandon Woody appears with his trumpet, while a female band celebrates the women who have helped shape the city’s underground scene. Dolphins communicate through sound waves, trumpet flowers bring in a native plant, and pre-Inca-inspired sea motifs add another layer of cultural memory.

    The mural brings all of these sounds, histories, and influences together in one loud, graphic, colorful mix. Some things are meant to be remembered. Some need to be echoed. And some voices don’t need permission to pick up the mic and turn up the volume.”

  • by PRO April Skye, assisted by Rising Star Anisa

    “This design developed from a direct approach to the concept of Echoes and Amplifiers, a physical journey across the composition, connecting back to the local music community.

    The sweeping wave, musician, and musical elements come together to echo and amplify each other, making sound feel visually tangible. The butterflies and plants/flowers are a personal and symbolic elements I’ve always loved painting. They offer a simple, organic lightness and reflect the transformative nature of music.”

  • by PRO Sanah, assisted by Rising Star Artie Sadahiro

    “Echoes and Amplifiers: The AFRO Newspaper

    My mural explores the theme “Echoes and Amplifiers” through the history and legacy of the AFRO-American Newspaper, which was founded in Baltimore in 1892. For more than a century, the AFRO has served as a powerful platform for documenting, preserving, and amplifying Black voices, histories, struggles, achievements, and moments of joy. 

    The AFRO began as a small publication rooted in Baltimore’s Black community and grew into one of the most influential Black newspapers in the country. Under the leadership of John H. Murphy Sr., the newspaper became a voice challenging racism and injustice while also celebrating Black businesses, culture, leadership, and achievement. Its pages documented important moments in Baltimore and American history from a Black perspective, including civil rights struggles, racial violence, military service, education, politics, and community life.

    The concept of “echoes” represents the stories preserved within the AFRO’s pages and archives—the voices of generations who demanded to be seen, heard, and remembered. These stories continue to echo through Baltimore and across the country. “Amplifiers” represents the AFRO itself: a platform that took individual experiences and community stories and gave them a larger audience and lasting historical significance.

    My mural recognizes the AFRO not simply as a newspaper, but as an important part of Baltimore’s cultural history and a living archive of Black America. By bringing imagery from the AFRO’s history into a contemporary mural, I am connecting the voices of the past with the voices of the present. The mural becomes an amplifier of those stories, ensuring that the history documented by the AFRO continues to be heard, remembered, and carried forward into future generations.”