Evolution of an Artist – The Art of Mak Murals

Makena Brooks aka Mak Murals is an artist shaped by unlikely geographies. Born in Texan and raised in rural Kenya. The artist now works in the streets of Sheffield, emerging from the studio into the street art world. Their work carries traces of all their environments. From the vastness of nature to the intensity of solitude and the resilience of displacement. What defines Mak’s practice most today is a shift from safe, marketable imagery toward something darker. Something more emotional and unmistakably their own.

Artistic Pivot

Across murals, tattoos, sketches and studio pieces, Mak is in the middle of an artistic pivot. Their current evolution is raw, sometimes difficult and often deeply personal. But it’s also what makes their work compelling. They are an artist in motion. Negotiating the tension between visibility and vulnerability, public walls and private meaning, bright murals and shadowed creatures.

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Between Worlds

Mak’s artistic foundations were formed far from the Steel City. Raised in Kenya from the age of four, they were immersed in sweeping landscapes. Wildlife and a level of freedom that came from living in such an expanse. Despite this supplies were scarce with sketchbooks and art materials making rare luxuries.

“When someone brought me my first proper sketchbook, I was so excited,” they recall. “Before that, I was just drawing on scraps of paper around the house.”

Their early work gravitated toward animals and evolved into more fantastical creatures. Lions, giraffes, dragons. All became part of an inner mythology shaped by the collision of real wildlife and the escapism of drawing. But those early sketches also came with an unspoken pressure. In conservative environments creativity was safer when it stayed apolitical, pleasant and unchallenging.

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From Tattooing to Murals

Mak eventually moved back to Texas and then to the UK. First carving out a career as a tattoo artist. The discipline left a lasting mark on their wider work. Controlled linework, dense shadow and a fascination with ambiguity. Their tattoo style, often monochrome and heavily shaded, features creatures with darkened faces and indistinct bodies. There is a purposeful mystery to them.

The transition into muralism began through a meeting with Peachzz. An artist whose vibrant murals can be found across the UK and internationally. Initially coming on board in an assistant role, Mak expected to carry supplies or clean brushes. Instead, they were handed a spray can and invited to paint.

“I’d never held a spray can in my life,” Mak laughs. “I thought I was going to ruin her painting.”

Instead, it became a turning point. Within a year of that first job, they had assisted on major murals across the UK and Europe. Painting entire sections independently and soon developing a flow with their mentor. Confidence grew, alongside an understanding of how large-scale work differs from the intimate precision of tattooing.

“You have to be looser,” they explain. “You stop obsessing over tiny details you can’t see from the street. It changed everything about how I work.”

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Style Divided

On the street, Mak’s own work started to lean toward the bright, bold aesthetic common in contemporary muralism. Accessible creatures, colourful characters and lively imagery. Pieces that themselves sit comfortably within the more ‘family friendly’ tradition of community walls and festival commissions. Yet even in these early works, there was a creative dissonance.

“I struggle with this internal battle,” Mak says. “Do I express myself honestly, or do I keep it marketable? The colourful murals feel almost fake sometimes. They’re fun, but they’re not me.”

This honesty is good to see in early-career artists, many of whom feel pressure to conform to a perceived standard. Makena names it directly. Bright colours, clear outlines, feel-good motifs. A formula they describe as expected, safe and uncontroversial. But with their own instincts pulling in a different direction.

Lick of Paint

A recent mural, painted on legal walls during the Lick of Paint festival in Sheffield, is a black-and-white dragon. It’s rendered in an abstract, ambiguous form. Set within a sea of bright more traditional works, Mak’s work stood out like an interruption. Eerie and intriguing.

“Some asked if it was two dragons,” Mak says. “Some said they couldn’t tell what they were looking at. And honestly, that’s the point. It’s whatever you want it to be.”

A Darker Aesthetic

Mak’s black-and-grey, illustrative work isn’t easily categorised. It feels akin to dark fantasy, and the world of graphic novels. It nods to tattoo culture and indeed their own tattoo style, but stretches beyond it. They describe this work as more authentic, something that is truer to themselves as a person.

Critically, this relates to one of the most significant tensions in their practice. Mak is navigating the shift from art that protects them. Moving from the safe, colourful public murals, to art that reveals them. It’s a movement that can also be seen within their studio practice.

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Studio Practice: Vulnerability on Wood

One of Mak’s most arresting recent works is a large wooden panel saturated in a vivid pink. It’s a colour they chose precisely because they “hate the colour.” At its centre, a bound figure is surrounded by stark, confrontational text. It channels an unfiltered anger, betrayal and emotional upheaval. This isn’t decorative or comforting; it’s designed to disrupt, a deliberate rupture.

“For the first time, I made something for myself,” they say. “Not to please anyone. Not to be pretty. It felt like an emotional release.”

Vulnerability

Showing it publicly is another story. Vulnerability, once externalised, becomes exposure. It’s something that Mak is acutely aware of.

“When people see it and ask about it, I get nervous. It’s so personal. Not what you’d usually see from me.”

This work, raw, confrontational and emotionally explicit, marks the beginning of Mak’s next phase. A more conceptual, expressive practice grounded in inner life rather than external expectation.

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An Artist at a Crossroads

Mak’s body of work can be understood as a dialogue between two modes of artistic identity. First the public artist. Someone who is commissioned, collaborative and colourful. An artist shaped by the conventions of contemporary muralism. These works function socially and visually. Bright, uplifting and community-minded. They show technical skill, adaptability and professionalism.

Duality of Practice

Personally the work is darker, more introspective. It’s ambiguous and sometimes unsettling. This work privileges emotion over clarity and symbolism over literalism. Authenticity is preferred over mass appeal. Rendered in limited palettes, it challenges the viewer’s certainty and invites them to fill in the gaps.

Mak’s evolution lies in their negotiation of these two identities. Far from a weakness, the duality is the most interesting part of their emerging voice.

Their black-and-white dragon mural, for example, is an inflection point. It uses shadow to obscure the recognisable, forcing the viewer to confront uncertainty. The indistinct body, the darkened face, the ambiguity of form. All challenge the bright imagery on the walls surrounding it. Its power comes from a refusal. Refusal to be tidy, to be obvious or to be decorative.

In their studio painting, that refusal becomes something more intimate and political in its own way. Not political in the sense of public affairs, but political in the sense of identity and survival. Mak describes themselves as a queer and neurodiverse artist. Someone who grew up in places hostile to both. They are only now beginning to explore what happens when art becomes an act of self-permission rather than self-protection.

The tension between visibility and self-concealment is the thread linking their murals, tattoos and studio work.

A Lot to Say

Mak is clear about where they want their work to go. A space that explores a darker, more emotional more vulnerable territory. “I feel like I have a lot to say,” they admit. “I’m learning that maybe I do have a voice.”

Street art has always been a medium for transformation. One of walls, of artists and of audiences. Mak stands at that threshold, balancing skill with experimentation, mentorship with self-definition, public acceptance with private truth. Their next stage is not just stylistic, but personal. As they put it:

“Life is hard. And I want to express that. I’m finally able to express myself.”