Cross My Heart by Candy Kuo in Austin

Candy is a Taiwan-born visual artist and muralist currently based out of Austin, Texas. With a background in fashion and music, her pieces often feature strong female portraiture, bright colorways, playful depictions of local flora and fauna, as well as influences from pop culture and inspirations. She blends styles and motifs from her experiences growing up in Taiwan and the Rio Grande Valley, exploring a multicultural style of East and Southwest. She has been painting murals professionally since 2016. Her main focus is with acrylic, ink, and aerosols, though she works in a variety of mediums, spanning from traditional oils and watercolors to textile art. Her primary focus for the last 7 years has been murals and large-scale installations, traveling for festival installations, and collaborating with local organizations in public art and community renewal initiatives across the country. Her works often explore human nature and the symbiotic relationships we have with our world; her recent works seek to dissect and reflect on her identity as an immigrant, a female artist in a male-dominated industry, and as a mother, while engaging with the public through impactful story-telling. Candy has an extensive portfolio of publicly and privately commissioned art projects across the country. Many of these large-scale installations are permanent fixtures in local establishments, and range from individual projects to full-scale installations that often require collaborating with other artists, designers, and agencies. In the last six years, she has completed close to 80 mural projects and has been featured in press and festivals across the United States as well as Taiwan. From initial design to final execution, Candy has extensive experience working on each facet of the mural fabricating process. Her skills include painting on many different conditions of interior as well as exterior surfaces, prepping work areas and surfaces, operating scissor and boom lifts, executing the design, and integrating the client’s needs and vision for the space to best fit the branding, culture, or mission. Her completed projects have included numerous residential as well as commercial mural installations ranging from national brands to local businesses and organizations. She has worked with companies such as Huston-Tillotson University, Bumble, Austin City Limits, Downtown Austin Alliance, the Arrive Hotel, Waterloo Greenway, and Misfit Collectibles, and was recently selected to be featured in the inaugural mural festivals for both the city Austin as well as Beaumont, a city in East Texas.