Muralist Mike Norice Paints Hope and Unity Across South L.A.
This program is supported by the Department of Cultural Affairs.
The Watts-born muralist Mike Norice went viral in 2024 for painting a Kendrick Lamar mural in Compton. Emblazoned with the coda, “They Not Like Us,” next to Kendrick’s face on the side of Tam’s Burgers at Central and Rosecrans, the mural drew international attention. For Norice, his work’s spirit stems from his “Artfully United” series.
Starting in 2017, Norice painted 20 murals across South Los Angeles, Compton and Inglewood proclaiming “Keep Smiling,” “Be Optimistic," “Motivate,” “Dream Big,” “Forgiveness,” “Love,” “Harmony,” “Honor,” and “We Are One,” among other messages embodying the philosophy behind “Artfully United.” I spoke with Norice to get the scoop on how his art unifies the city, or as he says, “to be a candle in the darkness.”
“I saw a lot of advertisements. This is a high consumer area,” he tells me, explaining the project’s genesis. “They're advertising beer, advertising fast food, they're advertising sex, they're advertising consumer stuff. So I was like, hey, why not advertise positivity?”
Norice’s dedicated to changing the narrative. People always tell him how seeing "Forgiveness" or “Dream Big” while moving through LA uplifts them and even inspires new action.
The large block letters are cast in black against a white background. The murals are often on church walls or community centers, but some rest on industrial buildings and small businesses. His work is so ubiquitous across South Los Angeles that I saw two more driving home from our interview as I cruised to the 110 via Vermont and Slauson.
The series’ first mural is on Slauson and Hoover. “Forgiveness” is over 90 feet long and 23 feet tall on Slauson's north side. Ironically, it was supposed to be up for only three months, but the location saw such an increase in business that it was decided to make it permanent.
Most of Norice’s murals include the character, “Powerful Paul.” Paul is a 6-year-old boy “who represents positivity and anyone’s youth,” he says. “He has a green glow that comes out of his chest. That glow is prayer. I wanted to convey that he can do anything through prayer.” In the mural “Hope,” Paul holds a sledgehammer because he’s breaking walls down.
Located at 54th and 11th Avenue, “Hope” is dedicated to Kobe Bryant and Nipsey Hussle. Kobe died while he was painting it and the location is just blocks from where Nipsey grew up. Norice explains: “This message is showing there is still HOPE within our community, and we shouldn't leave or abandon it. In this mural, Powerful Paul is breaking through a wall that shows a peaceful scenery. This illustrates that we can find joy and comfort within our community, and we don't have to look elsewhere.”
In this way, Norice’s work is like Ted Watkins, the namesake of Watts’ Central Park and the founder of the Watts Labor Community Action Committee (WLCAC). Watkins' motto was “Don’t Move, Improve!” After the 1965 Watts’ Uprisings, Watkins encouraged Watts citizens to improve their neighborhood rather than leave. Norice’s murals personify this spirit.
“I was born and raised in these areas,” he says. “I know what we want because I'm part of the work.” Born in 1980 in Watts, Norice lived on 113th Street with his older sister and single mother. He remembers eating government cheese, drinking powdered milk and walking through alleys with his mom collecting cans in order to scrape together enough money to eat. For a few years in his childhood, his mom moved them to Fresno when gang wars heated up.
Norice’s professional career began after he graduated from the Fashion Institute of Design and Merchandising in 2002. For several years he had a Melrose shop where he customized sneakers, including 16 for Tom Cruise. He’s created artwork for Mariah Carey, Elton John, Madonna and the Game. He also designs jackets and hoodies.
The verisimilitude of Norice’s compositional skills is obvious in his new “Watts Women Rising” mural on Anzac and 103rd which features portraits of six pillars of Watts. Commissioned by the City of Los Angeles’s Department of Cultural Affairs, the six women are: Betty Day, Ms. Dot, Kathy Wooten, Maudine Clark, Sweet Alice Harris and Dr. Cynthia ‘Sista Soulja’ Mendenhall. The masterful mural includes their names below their faces.
Norice has two murals on the Starbucks at Century and Alameda in Freedom Plaza in the newly redeveloped Jordan Downs Housing Projects. Since opening in 1944, there’s been almost no new development around Jordan Downs. Norice’s “Love” and “Community” bring new life — “Love” highlights a pianist, skater, and father helping his daughter play guitar and girl jumping rope juxtaposed with the Watts Towers and a Metro train. “Community” features a trumpeter, father and baby, basketball player, bicyclist, laborer, protestor and a mother with her child. The protester holds a sign stating: “65, 92, 20.” The three different years Watts had riots.
Norice's work is the subject of a recent documentary, and as this article goes to press, he’s finishing a mural at Manchester and Vermont in a new plaza rising on a lot that’s been vacant since 1992. The mural features the new development’s logo, “along with Powerful Paul intertwined within it,” he says. He’s thrilled that the developers chose him to paint the new complex. “It makes me feel like my murals are a necessity to the community.”
Norice loves inspiring belief and breaking stereotypes about South Los Angeles. He believes painting hopeful messages can change someone’s mentality. This is exemplified in a mural about a block west of his “Community” work, where Norice has painted a Watts timeline going back to the 19th century, when Watts was agricultural. The righthand corner declares:
“Dear Watts, Thank you for all of the good times as well as the bad. For the bad times are just learning lessons. Keep inspiring creating. And never stop believing."
