Graffiti News

Six surfers share a building-sized portrait

Six women surfers are the subjects of a large black-and-white mural nearing completion at Hotel Miramar in San Clemente, California. According to the Santa Ana Orange County Register’s September 17, 2026 report, artist Julie Engelmann, who lives in Half Moon Bay, California, was adding the finishing touches after just over a week of painting. The wall measures 20 feet wide and 30 feet tall.

The featured surfers are Caroline Marks, Molly Picklum, Sierra Kerr, Erin Brooks, Sky Brown and Caity Simmers. The newspaper reports that most call Southern California home. Their portraits bring faces associated with the ocean onto a building in a town closely connected to surfing.

The timing connects the wall with the Lexus Trestles Pro, which was bringing leading surfers to the area. For people following public art, the work offers a specific way to read that connection: a local building becomes a place to recognize athletes whose performances usually unfold offshore. The subjects are presented together, making a group of women central to the image of the sport.

A surf film provides the mural’s shared story

The mural is a collaboration with Red Bull Media House linked to Now Days, a film featuring the same six surfers. The Register reports that the film, released in 2026, was produced by former professional surfer Jodie Nelson, a resident of Surfside, California. It follows the women over three years of travel in search of waves.

Locations described in the report include Mexico, Indonesia, Australia, Fiji, Tahiti, South Africa, California, Hawaii and El Salvador. Alongside the surfing, the women discuss one another. The film presents competitors who also share friendship and mutual respect beyond competition.

Engelmann, herself an enthusiastic surfer, told the newspaper that the film inspired her to record this period in women’s surfing on a wall. Her assessment of the athletes’ rapid progress is part of the motivation behind the work.

The move from film to mural changes how the subjects are encountered. A film follows movement across places and time; a building holds the group in one location. That makes the wall a useful point of comparison for viewers interested in how sports imagery becomes public portraiture.

Action scenes and signatures extend the portraits

The composition includes surfing action as well as faces, giving viewers several details to follow across the large surface. Above the portraits, Simmers appears riding inside a deep barrel. Kerr is shown airborne over a wave, gripping the board’s rail with one hand while raising the other. Country flags sit beneath the surfers’ portraits, according to the Register.

Marks, Brown and Brooks had also visited to sign the mural by the time of the report. Their signatures add the subjects’ own marks to Engelmann’s painted representation. For a viewer, those details connect the large image with the individuals it depicts.

A useful way to look at the work is to move between its different scales: the group portrait, the surfing gestures above it and the flags and signatures. The black-and-white treatment also invites attention to the arrangement of bodies and faces. Together, those elements give the wall more to communicate than a list of recognizable names.

Hotel Miramar places the work within a surfing town

Hotel Miramar in San Clemente is the location identified for seeing the mural. The source does not give a street address, visiting hours or a dedicated viewing arrangement. Its September 17 report describes finishing work still underway, so it does not establish an opening date or a completed installation.

The Register identifies Trestles as the planned surfing venue for the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics. That connection helps explain the country flags, but appearing in the mural does not confirm a surfer’s place at those Games. Engelmann described the Olympic reference as a nod to the athletes’ prospects.

Marks told the newspaper that surfing’s growth and Olympic visibility offer an opportunity to encourage inclusion and inspire another generation. The report also notes earlier surfer murals in San Clemente. This work joins that local practice while placing six women at the center of the picture. For mural followers, it is a way to examine whom a town chooses to represent on its walls. Explore other works through the Wallscape map.

Source: Santa Ana Orange County Register