The Best Bushwick Collective Street Art and Where to Find It
In a world rife with complexities, finding joy in simple pleasures can reconnect us to the present moment. For us, that’s a good cup of coffee first thing in the morning, an open table at a busy restaurant, and discovering amazing street art. And there’s no better place than the Bushwick Collective for a street art fix. We’ve been traipsing to Bushwick for years just to check out the latest murals, and here’s our guide on how to find the best street art this hopping street art mecca has to offer.
Where is the Bushwick Collective?
Bushwick is a neighborhood in Brooklyn which neighbors popular Williamsburg and diverse Bedford-Stuyvesant. The Bushwick Collective is located in the heart of Bushwick, but doesn’t have hard boundaries. We often think of it as having a nucleus, which is located at the intersection of St. Nicholas Avenue and Troutman Street. It extends out from that core, covering street corners and shop gates far and wide.
The Bushwick Collective Mural Map above highlights some of the best street art the area has to offer, and we’ve described them individually in more detail below. You can open a full-size map and use it as a starting point to explore the area.
When is the best time to visit the Bushwick Collective?
Every year, the Bushwick Collective Block Party kicks off the unofficial summer season. It invites the best street artists from around the globe to create new murals, but the outdoor celebration also features musical performances and food trucks, drawing thousands to the neighborhood. If you’re interested in watching street artists at work, this is a great opportunity to do so. But the Bushwick Collective is worth a visit year-round, as most of the significant murals remain untouched between the events, and new ones continue to pop up all the time.
How do I get to the Bushwick Collective?
Brooklyn Beer Garden in Bushwick
If you’re traveling to the Bushwick Collective by subway, take the L train to the Jefferson St stop. If you’re traveling by car, the intersection of St. Nicholas Avenue and Troutman Street is the heart of the action, but you can also map to a nearby landmark like the House of Yes or Brooklyn Beer Garden (both of which are also plastered with fantastic street art). Just note that if you're trekking out for the Bushwick Collective Block Party, you should check for road closures.
Iconic Bushwick Collective Street Art You Shouldn’t Miss
Biggie Smalls by Danielle Mastrion
The sacred Biggie Smalls mural by Danielle Mastrion has remained undisturbed in its prime spot on Troutman Ave in the Bushwick Collective since 2012. In the ephemeral world of street art, this is an especially unusual honor. Mastrion, who is Brooklyn born, is a classically trained oil painter. Her murals can be found in all of the city’s boroughs and across the world. On the 10-year anniversary of the Biggie Smalls piece, Mastrion gave it a refresh. It still attracts fans from far and wide and is one of the most recognizable and photographed pieces of street art in North America, perhaps even the world.
Big Ears by Sipros Naberezny
Artist Sipros Naberezny and his signature Big Ears murals have been a Bushwick Collective staple for as long as we’ve been visiting. His current piece was painted in 2022, and features big-eared caricatures of fellow street artist Cristhian Saravia (@golden305), DJ Hadiex, and his wife and muse, Flavia Ramos. Pieces through the years always add a playful touch to the area, from a sinister Salvador Dali to a kid in an arcade claw machine surrounded by a sea of glazed doughnuts.
Portrait of a Girl by Christina Angelina
Christina Angelina’s portrait of a girl is one of our early favorites. Originally painted in 2016, the fact that the mural has endured continues to bring us joy. The Los Angeles-based artist has produced a number of incredible portraits throughout her career under the moniker @starfightera, earning her early fans like Ben Moody of the band Evanescence and drawing corporate partners like Uber and Porsche. Christina Angelina has said her characters are often different facets or manifestations of her own self. Although not nearly as massive in scale as other Bushwick Collective murals or her other street art pieces around the world, the girl on Artichoke Basile’s wall is bewitching in its simplicity. We continue to see new Bushwick visitors fall under her spell, with photos popping up on social media year after year.
Huddled Girl by Dasic Fernandez
Chilean artist Dasic Fernandez was one of early street art discoveries, and we quickly fell in love with his signature rainbow-colored reverse drip. We’ve had the pleasure of watching him and his team work at a variety of mural festivals, but when he returned to the Bushwick Collective Block Party in 2023, he decided to work alone. His mural took five days to complete. The Huddled Girl mural sits unsuspectingly at the first floor level on Starr Street and is easy to miss. But that makes finding it all the more rewarding.
The Search Continues by Jason Naylor
Artist’s Instagram: @jasonnaylor
Jason Naylor is such a household name today, we struggle to remember when we first became aware of his work. We have photos of his colorful and inspirational murals dating back to 2017, when his specific brand of positivity was slowly proliferating the city. Whether intentional or not, his walls became social media bait when his thoughtful messages resonated with passerby after passerby.
His popularity continued to soar during the pandemic, when we were all yearning for kindness and connection. His Bushwick Collective mural at 454 Troutman Street is called The Search Continues, which Naylor explains as follows: “Each day it becomes more and more important (to) have love, joy and color in our lives. But each day, it becomes more and more difficult to find such things. The world is a jungle of fear, pain and darkness... but we won’t give up. We will never desist. The search continues, and we will find what we are looking for…”
Also make it a point to visit Naylor’s mural covering the Be Electric Studios building at 358 Troutman Street. The collaboration with Pittsburgh artist Ashley Hodder has a wonderfully psychedelic feel that is utterly charming in scale.
Angel Snake of Brooklyn by B Line Dot
Caffe Vita has been roasting specialty coffee out of Seattle since 1995. When they decided to penetrate the New York City coffee scene, they did so in two of our favorite neighborhoods. Their first location made our list of where to get coffee in the Lower East Side. Their second location in Bushwick is far more sizable, and functions as a roastery as well.
In 2020, Caffe Vita invited Seattle-based artist B Line Dot to decorate the shop’s exterior, and the incredible Angel Snake mural was born. Though we never need an excuse to drop by Caffe Vita for a coffee break, seeing this massive serpent in person always impresses.
Gods That Walk Among Us by Robert Vargas
Artist’s Instagram: @therobertvargas
Robert Vargas is known for the larger-than-life portraits that adorn his home city of Los Angeles, immortalizing such famous locals as Kobe Bryant and Eddie van Halen. For the 10th anniversary of the Bushwick Collective Block Party in 2021, the Pratt Institute graduate returned to his old stomping grounds to produce a meaningful street art piece inspired by the Latino community, who, as he put it, “are the first to arrive to work and the last to leave.” The large piece at the corner of Wyckoff Avenue and Troutman Street took over 30 hours to complete, and was actualized over three days despite a rainstorm and punishing 90-degree heat.
Man in Flaming Hoodie by Jeremy Biggers
Artist’s Instagram: @stemandthorn
Producing work under Stem and Thorn, Dallas-based artist Jeremy Biggers has prioritized sharing his experiences as a Black man through his art. His latest piece features an unidentified black man in a flaming hoodie who is simultaneously familiar yet anonymous, and the powerful image is “about attempting to suppress that constant rage and questioning why we feel we need to.”
Although his latest contribution is located in one of Bushwick’s most visible stretches, we’d be remiss not to send you to the piece he painted in 2022. Located on the south wall of L Train Vintage at St. Nicholas Ave, model and activist Chasity Samone’s face is arresting in a striking blue and red palette, with Biggers’s signature white polka dots splashed across the surface.
Bushwick Breeze by Tymon de Laat
Much like one of our favorite street artists Eduardo Kobra, Tymon de Laat specializes in powerful portraits. The Rotterdam-based artist graduated from the Willem de Kooning Academy, but he developed his signature style as he made his way through Central and South America and fell in love with its people.
In 2023, the Cultural Department of the NYC Consulate-General of the Netherlands worked with the Bushwick Collective to invite de Laat to participate in the annual Bushwick Collective Block Party. It was his first visit to New York. As is the case with most of his murals, the portrait that sits on the corner of St. Nicholas Ave and Jefferson St is based on a photograph captured by the artist. The subject, Kharlox Piñeda, is a Colombian man living in Bonaire, a small island in the Caribbean. De Laat met him on his travels, and also completed a portrait of his daughter.
A Boy and His Dog by Joe Iurato and Logan Hicks
Artists’ Instagram: @joeiurato and @loganhicksny
Joe Iurato’s work is familiar to most locals. Not only does his work regularly appear in all of New York City’s most popular street art spots like the Welling Court Mural Project, he’s also a familiar fixture in popular destinations like Asbury Park. Logan Hicks is also well known in these parts, being one of the artists tapped to fill the iconic Bowery Wall Mural space. Both artists create photorealistic works using stencils and aerosols, and this mural is just one in a string of collaborations over the years.
What’s particularly fun about A Boy and His Dog isn’t necessarily the work itself, but the fact that the gate on which it’s painted has been Joe Iurato’s spot at the Bushwick Collective for 11 years. If you pop by year after year like we do, you’ll get to enjoy a small catalog of Iurato’s work. His subjects are often children being children, evoking a sense of curiosity, innocence or mischief.
Cortes Grocery by Zach Curtis and Danny Cortes
Danny Cortes is a local celebrity, gaining notoriety for the NYC-themed miniatures he began crafting during the pandemic. His bite-sized bodega storefronts, Mr. Softee trucks, newsstands and ice boxes are collectible items that sell for approximately $2,000 each.
In 2023, artist Zach Curtis partnered with Danny Cortes to bring the Cortes Grocery to life in Bushwick. Although Cortes’s miniatures similarly transport you to a different place and time, the mural uses scale to its benefit by delivering an almost-immersive experience. Zach Curtis also filled it with winks and nods to his home state. Micihganders might recognize references to Farmer Jack’s, Faygo, and Vernor’s ginger ale.
1520 by Huetek
Artist’s Instagram: @huetek
Born and raised in Brooklyn, Huetek is a jack of all trades. The graphic designer, musician, illustrator, and painter has decorated walls from Mexico to Miami. For 2023, he paid tribute to the 50th anniversary of hip hop with his 1520 mural. The number is a reference to 1520 Sedgwick Avenue in the Bronx, which is often called “the birthplace of hip hop” because one of the earliest and most pivotal moments in the genre took place here.
On August 11, 1973, Clive Campbell aka DJ Kool Herc spun the turntables at a back-to-school birthday party for his sister Cindy Campbell in the recreation center located at 1520 Sedgwick Avenue. Here, he debuted a technique he had been slowly perfecting where he isolated the instrumental portion of the record which emphasized the drum beat—the "break"—and switched from one break to another. Using the same two-turntable set-up of disco DJs, he used two copies of the same record to elongate the break. This breakbeat DJing, using funky drum solos, formed the basis of hip hop music.
Tina Turner by Ashley Hodder
Artist’s Instagram: @ashleyhodderart
Street art has always been a preferred medium for tributes, particularly for the recently passed. At the Bushwick Collective Block Party in June 2023, it had been barely two weeks since the loss of legendary singer, songwriter and actress Tina Turner. Ashley Hodder took on the task of producing a fitting homage to the icon. Tina Turner’s portrait has many of Hodder’s signature traits, including the fluorescent speckles that collectively create depth and texture in her large-scale murals. Fans won’t want to miss taking a photo with this stunning piece.
Conclusion
The Bushwick Collective has earned quite a reputation over the years, and the high-profile spots are carefully curated by founder Joe Ficalora and extended by invitation only. But as we mentioned in an earlier section, the farther out you’re willing to wander, the more you’ll discover lesser known artists in “unsanctioned” spots. As street art talent continues to flock to the area, Bushwick and its surrounds has become an incubator with, quite literally, no boundaries. So put on your walking shoes and make a day of it. We’re sure you’ll find some new favorites of your own.
