The Las Vegas Valley enjoys a surfeit of white cinder-block walls. Big ones. Some have plaster over them; some are painted in sandy hues; some are blocked by the odd bit of greenery, usually the skinny stems of palm trees. But over the years, some have been covered by that rarest of Southern Nevada commodities: art.Beginning in the late aughts with the buildings and alleyways of the 18b Arts District and accelerating with the introduction of the Life Is Beautiful festival in autumn 2013, the Valley has enjoyed the street art equivalent of a superbloom, and it shows no sign of letting up. Murals by local and international artists cover Downtown’s Fremont East and Arts District corridors, almost in their entirety. New murals are joining older works in Henderson’s Water Street district. And the phenomenon isn’t limited to the outdoors; you now can find bold, colorful murals inside Valley businesses, including major casinos like the Cosmopolitan and the Palms.If you haven’t yet seen the writing (and pictures) on the wall, there’s no better time than now—and you don’t even have to hop into your car, much less step out of it. Follow us as we take you on a tour of the Valley’s steadily growing collection of world-class street art and murals.

AGOSTINO IACURCI

Italian artist Agostino Iacurci (agostinoiacurci.com) created this lively, bright-colored landscape work for the 2021 Life Is Beautiful festival at the behest of “global creative house” JustKids, which commissions fresh street art for the fest every year. Other artists have painted this wall for past LIB events—a piece by Dead Stockton, aka D*Face, covered it for several years—but Iacurci is the first to regard it as a wall, with painted-on passageways and supporting columns.

KEYA TAMA

Commissioned for Life Is Beautiful 2021, this work by Keya Tama (keyatama.com) was completed shortly before the South African-born artist’s 24th birthday. (If Tama’s style feels very assured for someone so young, that’s because he’s been working steadily since age 13.) He brings these bold, confident lines to other mediums, too, including textiles.

NATHANIEL BENJAMIN

A woodcut printmaker and muralist based in Reno, Nathaniel Benjamin (nathanielbenjamin.com) created this “behind-the-scenes” mural for Vesta Coffee Roasters in homage to the migrant workers who harvest coffee fruit around the world. “The work of many human hands goes into making the thing a lot of us depend on to face the world,” he writes on his Instragram page.

PWOZ

There’s a party goin’ on. French artist Pwoz (pwoz.art)—he pronounces it proze—is a Las Vegas resident by way of Saint Martin, Tahiti, Montreal and Amsterdam, and that worldliness really shows in this Arts District mural, in which folks of all shapes and skin tones simply get on their feet and celebrate being alive. To look at this wall is to fervently wish you could jump into it and join the fun. Joie de vivre, indeed.

BEZT

Most of the Valley’s murals conform to a landscape orientation; that’s just the kind of walls we have. But “The Sleeping Knight,” created by Polish muralist Bezt (bezt.org), is a proper portrait, both in terms of its orientation and the photographic way it captures a moment in time. Is the boy dreaming of dragonslaying, or is he simply bored by the sermon? Either way, this 2016 work is easily one of the most striking murals ever to come from Life Is Beautiful’s street art program.

GUILHERME LEMES

An art director and visual designer by day, the Brazilian-born, Vegas-based Guilherme Lemes—who creates murals under the name Eyelien (eyelien.com)—painted this richly hued, blissed-out, swoonworthy cosmic scene for Climate Justice Now, a network of organizations dedicated to social, ecological and gender causes. In the artist’s own words: “Cuidem da terra. To tentando por aqui.” (Loosely translated: “Take care of the Earth. I’m trying here.”)

Water Street

FROM TOP: THE RAINBOW HOTEL & CASINO • THE MUFFLER SHOP • 314 WATER STREET • 318 WATER STREET

The murals lining the walls of the Water Street district nod to Henderson’s beginnings. “The Promise,” by Ozzy Villate, alludes to WWII-era employer Basic Magnesium. Giuseppe Aldama (giuseppealdama.com) and Wilson Posada’s (posadartstudio.com) collaborative mural references several key Henderson developments. On our cover, David Flores’ (davidfloresart.com) flowering skull adorns a tall wall at 314 S. Water Street. And a couple of doors south, Eric Vozzola (ericvozzola.com), Anthony “Tone Castle” Castillo (tone-castle.com) and Mili Turnbull (linktr.ee/milistardust) each add their own unique eye-catching psychedelia to Water Street’s “Go With the Flow” series.

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