I like finding ways to make all these different forms coexist together in harmony, to create an experience that can take someone to another place and make them feel happier.

Color Story

Intrepid abstract artist Mariell Guzman paints her own language bringing others joy.

By Shilo Urban
Photo by Linda Ho

Happy blue squiggles burst into life beside flashes of yellow and wavering greens. Red and purple skip together holding hands. Feral pinks frolic through a lucid daydream with colors so bright they pop out and hover. Welcome to Mariell Guzman’s world, an exuberant visual playground that vibrates with energy and hums with happiness. Her colors wiggle, flutter, shimmy and bounce. Inspired by nature and imbued with childlike wonder, her expressive imagery sparks joy — a lot of it.

Mariell’s fun-loving murals are blooming across North America from Memphis to Miami to Mexico City. Fort Worth claims the largest collection of her handiwork, which adds a spirited verve to Sundance Square, The Foundry District and Tulips music venue (to name a few). She’s one of Pepsi’s “Texas Tastemakers” and has a slew of brands like Samsung and 7-Eleven lining up at her door. While the 27-year-old is known for her murals, she also experiments with mixed-media paintings, installations, sculptures, illustrations, apparel and plants.

“I like finding ways to make all these different forms coexist together in harmony, to create an experience that can take someone to another place and make them feel happier,” says Mariell, a Mexican-American artist who immigrated to the U.S. as a child. Today, her murals transport countless viewers to whimsical worlds far and wide. But it all began with one little girl’s search for a space where she belonged.