BROOKLYN STREET ART LOVES YOU MORE EVERY DAY
Wynwood Walls made its presence felt throughout Miami Art Week this December with a familiar mix of new murals, established names, and a thematic frame titled ONLY HUMAN. As crowds moved between fairs, pop-ups, concerts, dance floors, bars, receptions, painting jams, and private events, the Walls once again operated as both one of the primary anchors and an amplifier for street art during Art Basel week.
Developed by Jessica Goldman Srebnick, ONLY HUMAN positioned itself as a reflection on lived experience, emotion, and hand-made mark-making at a moment when digital production and AI are reshaping visual culture. The framing was intentionally broad, while the artist roster leaned toward painters with established reputations for figurative, symbolic, and calligraphic work.
New murals and installations unfolded across the site, with contributions by:
CRYPTIK, who brought his Sanskrit-influenced iconography and meditative symbolism to a prominent exterior façade
SETH, continuing his long-running global narrative focused on childhood, memory, and displacement
Miss Birdy, whose surreal figurative imagery explored interior worlds and states of reflection
Joe Iurato, installing his signature hand-cut wooden figures that sit between drawing, sculpture, and quiet observation
Quake, grounding the program in West Coast graffiti history by painting the Wynwood Walls train in motion, dedicating the piece to his friend and graffiti pioneer Tracy 168
Persue, placing his BunnyKitty character into an apocalyptic scenario where graffiti mutates and color intensifies
RISK, reinforcing the Walls’ long-standing relationship with early graffiti writers and the culture’s foundational figures
One of the most discussed moments of the week was the return collaboration by El Mac and RETNA, their first joint public work in more than a decade. The pairing carried historical weight, recalling an earlier period when large-scale figurative painting and calligraphic abstraction were helping redefine the possibilities of street art on monumental walls. With El Mac’s son serving as the subject, the work subtly marked a generational passage within a culture now several decades into its evolution.
In the compound, Goldman Global Arts Gallery extended the program with full studio exhibitions by:
Hebru Brantley, presenting character-driven paintings and sculptural works that draw on pop imagery and storytelling, filtered through childhood, hero archetypes, and social commentary
Simon Berger, showing portraits formed through controlled fracturing and impact on glass, using cracks, density, and light to construct faces that feel both precise and fragile
Sandra Chevrier, exhibiting mixed-media portraits that layer comic-book imagery over the human figure, using those fragments to address identity, social/psychological pressure, and the public narratives imposed on private lives
These exhibitions echoed the outdoor program’s emphasis on the human figure and modalities of identity, while offering a quieter counterpoint to the crowds milling about the grounds outside—one grounded more in interior presence than the spectacle.
As in past years, Wynwood Walls also hosted private previews and invitation-only gatherings early in the week, including an artists dinner tied to the unveiling of the new works. While guest lists and details remain largely off record, these evenings functioned as bubbling and charged meeting points for artists, collectors, curators, academics, photographers, and figures from real estate, music, and civic life—part celebration, part networking ritual that has become a familiar, carefully managed, feature of Art Week.
In the end, ONLY HUMAN reinforced Wynwood Walls’ role as a highly visible platform balancing graffiti lineage with polished mural production and market-aware programming. For visitors, it offers consistent access to both widely recognized and less-circulated names; for artists, it remains a closely watched stage in the street art calendar.
Wynwood Walls, in Wynwood, Miami, is open to the public year-round. Click HERE for more information on directions, schedules, tickets, and special events.
Jose Mertz. Wynwood, Miami. (photo © Jaime Rojo)
