In this episode of The Truth In This Art, I sit down with Kala Hagopian — founder and lead artist of Hagopian Arts, a woman-owned public art studio in the Philadelphia region.

About Kala Hagopian: Artist and founder of Hagopian Arts. Her large-scale murals transform public spaces by blending botanical and wildlife realism with geometric design, rooted in ecology, culture, and our relationship to the natural world.

Hagopian grew up in Vermont with her father, painter Philip Hagopian. No money, but art everywhere — fields, forests, and a public school Renaissance Program where she studied directly alongside ecologists and other professionals. Going to the source became instinct early. She trained at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, started painting murals, launched her first collaborative public art initiative in 2012, founded Hagopian Arts on her own in 2016 — the same year her son was born — and in 2018 started the EcoMural Project, often painting with her baby on her back.

That project now sits at 26 murals, each taking three to eight months to complete. She talks about building it through partnerships with organizations like John Heinz Wildlife Refuge, Philly Orchard Project, North American Land Trust, and Pollinator Partnership — groups that bring research, community education, and ecological depth into every project.

She also talks money and compromise. Early on, she'd spend six months on a job someone else finished in two weeks — same pay. She kept going, pushing every piece past what was expected. "I wasn't willing to compromise how I really wanted to paint, and I think that's defined me."

On independence, her answer is the same every time: "I cannot let life just happen to me. I want to be creating it."

The Truth In This Art is supported by William G. Baker, Jr. Memorial Fund, the Maryland State Arts Council's Creativity Grant and Mayor's Individual Artist Award - Creative Baltimore Fund (Baltimore). 

Host: Rob Lee
Music: Original music by Daniel Alexis Music with additional music from Chipzard and TeTresSeis.
Production: