Elena Torres doesn’t just paint walls — she transforms them into living, breathing ecosystems. Standing in front of her latest mural in downtown Portland, a 40-foot depiction of a Pacific Northwest old-growth forest, it’s easy to see why she’s become one of the most sought-after muralists in the country.
“Every pigment I use comes from the earth,” Torres explains, holding up a jar of deep ochre made from locally sourced clay. “When I paint a forest, I want the materials to honor the subject. It would feel wrong to celebrate nature using synthetic chemicals.”
Torres’s journey to plant-based pigments began during a residency in Oaxaca, Mexico, where she studied under traditional artisans who had been making natural dyes for generations. She learned to extract vivid blues from indigo, warm yellows from marigolds, and deep reds from cochineal — techniques that date back thousands of years.
What makes Torres’s work unique isn’t just her materials but her process. Before starting any mural, she spends weeks researching the local ecosystem. For her Portland piece, she catalogued over 60 native plant species, 15 bird species, and dozens of insects, incorporating each one into the design with scientific accuracy.
“Art has the power to make people see what they’ve been walking past every day,” she says. “If someone looks at my mural and then notices the actual Douglas fir across the street for the first time, I’ve done my job.”
Her upcoming project is her most ambitious yet: a series of interconnected murals across five buildings in Seattle’s Capitol Hill neighborhood, depicting the Puget Sound ecosystem from the ocean floor to the mountain peaks. The project, funded by a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts, will take over a year to complete.
Torres hopes the work will spark conversations about urban biodiversity and the ways cities can coexist with nature rather than displacing it. “We tend to think of nature as something that happens outside the city,” she reflects. “But nature is everywhere — even in the cracks in the sidewalk. We just need to pay attention.”
