Today we’d like to introduce you to Candy Yu Yen Kuo.
Hi Candy Yu Yen, it’s an honor to have you on the platform. Thanks for taking the time to share your story with us – to start maybe you can share some of your backstory with our readers?
My name is Candy Kuo, and I am a multidisciplinary muralist based in Austin, Texas. Born in Taiwan and raised in South Texas, I grew up between two cultures, and art became the language that helped me understand identity, belonging, and community. Since 2016, I have created more than 150 murals across the country and abroad, often with my partner and young daughter beside me, transforming public spaces into visual stories that invite connection and reflection.
My work is rooted in identity, emotional narrative, and the relationship between people and the natural world. As a first generation immigrant, painting allows me to explore dual belonging and the complexity of cultural memory. I gravitate toward stylized surrealism and figurative realism, using vibrant palettes, intricate textures, and spray paint as my primary medium to balance movement, softness, and strength. I often depict women, native flora and fauna, and symbolic natural elements that reflect resilience, heritage, and the landscapes of Austin.
Nature plays a central role in my practice. I love integrating local species and plants into my murals to create environments that feel alive, coexisting with the community while encouraging viewers to imagine their own relationship with the place. These elements anchor my work in Austin’s identity and honor the city I have called home since 2006.
My goals as an artist are to continue growing my craft in a way that supports my family, to be a role model for my daughter and young creatives, and to uplift communities through accessible, culturally rooted public art. I believe deeply in amplifying the diverse stories that define Austin and in creating work that reflects our shared humanity.
I’m sure it wasn’t obstacle-free, but would you say the journey has been fairly smooth so far?
I don’t think that any worthy pursuit should be without some struggle. I also think that every industry will have its own struggles, regardless of how much you know or how well-prepared you may think you are. It definitely hasn’t been a smooth road. I think from the outside, people see the finished murals, with all the color, the scale, and the visibility, and assume there’s some kind of linear path to that. But for me, it’s a lot more layered than that. There are no keys to the kingdom.
I came into mural work with a foundation in traditional art, but stepping into large-scale public work was a completely different world. At the same time, as my career was taking off, a career that often requires travel, long hours, and physical endurance, I had also just had my daughter, and was navigating the demands of being a working mom in the public eye with little outside support. Suddenly, I was putting my work out in the open, and that kind of visibility can be both empowering and vulnerable. There’s a physical and technical learning curve, to both public art and motherhood. Figuring out how to work on massive surfaces, navigating lifts and unpredictable environments, while also learning to be a mother in a society not always supportive of parents adds a mental load.
As a woman, an immigrant, and a mother in this industry, each of those identities has shaped the way I move through spaces that aren’t always built with these in mind. There were times early on where I didn’t know how to advocate for myself, or I questioned whether I belonged in certain rooms.
Financial instability is also a real part of the journey. As a freelance artist, there’s no guaranteed path or steady rhythm. You learn to adapt, to trust your instincts, and to build relationships within your community. That community has honestly been one of the most important parts of my growth. Finding other artists who were generous with their knowledge and creating spaces where we could learn from each other has been absolutely critical in my growth.
Again, I think all of those challenges are truly what shape the work. My murals are rooted in storytelling. They speak on identity, on resilience, and about our relationship with nature and each other. These stories come from lived experience.
Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know about your work?
I’m a multidisciplinary artist based in Austin, and my work really lives at the intersection of storytelling, community, and environment. Over the past several years, I’ve focused primarily on large-scale murals, and I’ve completed over a hundred pieces across Texas and beyond, often painting alongside my partner and with my daughter nearby, which has become a meaningful part of my process and rhythm.
I specialize in narrative-driven public art. A lot of my work draws from nature and the native plants, animals, and ecosystems around us. I often pair that with human subjects to explore identity, connection, and belonging. I’m really interested in how people see themselves reflected in shared spaces, so I approach each mural as both a visual experience and a story that resonates with the specific community it lives in.
I think what I’ve become known for is creating work that feels both vibrant and intentional, pieces that are visually striking from a distance, but hold a deeper emotional layer when you spend time with them. I often hope to invoke a sense of movement in my work, even at a large scale, and I try to bring a level of care to each piece that makes it feel personal rather than purely decorative.
What I’m most proud of is the life I’ve built around the work. Being able to sustain a career as an artist, to involve my family in that journey all around the world, and to contribute something lasting to public spaces is something I don’t take lightly. I’m also proud of the trust communities and clients place in me to tell stories that matter to them.
My background coming from an immigrant experience, working across different creative industries, and navigating this path as a mother truly shapes how I approach both the work and the relationships around it. I have a strong intuition for what moves people, and at the end of the day, it’s not just about making something beautiful, it’s about making something that feels alive and connected to the people who encounter it.
What were you like growing up?
I was born in Taipei, Taiwan, and a lot of my early memories are just full of energy and movement, running around Shilin Night Market and the mountains of the island with my grandfather, being surrounded by family as the one of the oldest of over twenty cousins, always in the middle of everything. I think that environment made me really social and expressive from a young age, and really instilled a love of nature in me.
Moving to the U.S. around age 5 shifted a lot for me. It was a pretty formative and honestly traumatic transition, I cried the entire plane ride because I didn’t want to leave my grandmother. I went from being very talkative and confident to much more withdrawn for a period of time. I had to relearn how to exist in a completely different cultural context, and that definitely shaped me. But even then, I still found ways to connect. I made friends, even if I was quieter, and I spent a lot of time reading, drawing, and playing music.
Art was always my constant. I was known as the girl who was always drawing, especially fashion illustrations back then. That was kind of my language when I didn’t always have the words. It gave me a way to express myself and connect with people without having to explain everything.
Pricing:
- Murals $25-$100/sq ft
- Live Painting $250/hr
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.itscandykuo.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/itscandykuo
