7 Atlanta spots with murals you’ll see when on the go

Liminal spaces are places that you might pass through, not places where you intend to remain. Taken from the Latin word “limen” — meaning threshold — liminal spaces fall into two major categories:

1. Transitional throughpoints on a journey to a final destination, such as an elevator, parking lot, highway interchange, waiting room or skybridge between two downtown buildings.
2. Creepy or surreal locations that just don’t feel right, like a once-familiar interior removed from its normal context, such as a dimly lit deserted shopping mall after business hours where you can hear the echoes of your footsteps. Or perhaps an abandoned place like Morris Brown College’s eerily silent, graffiti-tagged Herndon Stadium that now hosts roosting birds instead of fans.

Let’s take a look around metro Atlanta at how artwork can transform these liminal spaces into destinations in their own right — or, at a minimum, make our passage through a value-added experience:

The artist known as RISK and other members of the Atlanta Style Writers Association infuse their works with humor on the retaining walls of the Atlanta Beltline bridge at Ralph McGill Boulevard. (Arthur Rudick)

1. Beltline bridge over Ralph McGill Boulevard

In November 2025, the Atlanta Style Writers Association experimented with graffiti-themed murals for the Atlanta Style Writers Jam. They brought in a group of top-notch graffiti writers from the Mad Society Kings Crew — RISK, SEVER, VAYNE, DAKS, VIZIE and CHEAK — to transform the retaining walls of the Beltline bridge over Ralph McGill Boulevard into an Atlanta-centric, lowbrow, still life, Pop-art mural. It’s a giant gallery of graffiti pieces, memes, visual jokes and Easter eggs located right on an Atlanta Beltline access point.

We typically travel straight through the liminal space of a roadway underpass without giving it a second thought. Here, you could easily find yourself delaying your Beltline stroll for a quarter hour, uncovering hidden artistic gems.

A couple of examples include the use of a street art sub-sub genre called brandalism in which “RISK” — the writer’s handle — replaces “RAID” on a 1970s vintage can of insect spray. Because the colors and font are similar, the casual observer might not even notice. The Channel 2 Action News van is featured with the tagline “Coverage you can count on.” In this instance, the word “coverage” has the double meaning of news and paint coverage.

Orchestrated by Living Walls and curated by Drew Borders, six women and nonbinary artists of diverse cultural backgrounds created "I Am Mine / We Are Ours" at the Arizona Avenue MARTA underpass. (Arthur Rudick)

2. Arizona Avenue MARTA underpass

A mural can change a roadway underpass into a destination. But, ironically, if the artwork falls into severe disrepair, it can revert the archway back into a liminal space of the creepy variety. That was the case in the Arizona Avenue MARTA underpass where Living Walls executed the “I Am Mine / We Are Ours” project, replacing a badly deteriorated mural.

Curated by Drew Borders, the project features large-scale works by six women and nonbinary artists of diverse cultural backgrounds and experience levels: Danae Antoine, Vanna Black, Angela Bortone, Charity Hamidullah, Karaoke Rodriguez and Visakha Jane Phillips.

“Since the project’s completion, we’ve already seen tangible shifts,” said Tatiana Bell, Living Walls’ creative director. “More pedestrian traffic, increased recognition of the area and meaningful exposure for the artists involved. Ideally, the underpass becomes not just a place you pass through but a space that offers pause, connection and affirmation.”

Mr. Totem works on a mural in progress along the Northeast Beltline trail. (Arthur Rudick)

3. Northeast Beltline Trail railroad tunnel

Have you ever walked along an abandoned railroad line? Rusted steel ribbons vanishing at the horizons in both directions set a mysterious tone. Sapling trees growing between the ties are an unsettling reminder that you’re in a no-man’s land.

At the end of Mayson Street (near Piedmont Road and I-85), a stretch of the Beltline runs through a formerly forsaken railroad tunnel. Traces of the tracks leading to the entrance remain. You might think that the posh Beltline is nothing like the 22 miles of derelict railroad it replaced, but there is one constant: graffiti.

Crude and furtively applied unauthorized graffiti tags contributed to the tunnel’s liminal nature in the pre-Beltline days. Now, more graffiti-themed murals from the 2025 Atlanta Style Writers Jam have made this passageway the artistic crown jewel of the Northeast Beltline Trail. Look for Mr. Totem’s Burn Unit crew at the north end. Special guests such as JEKS, SPARKY Z, VAYNE, CES, CUBA, JURNE, STAE2 and WANE grace the center. The KAOS INC crew rounds out the south end.

Murals featuring pet portraits by Ashley Dopson greet clients in the parking lot of the West End Animal Wellness Center. (Arthur Rudick)

4. West End Animal Wellness Center’s back wall

As you try to wrangle a nervous, squirming animal who just wants to go home, a hurried walk through the back parking lot of an animal hospital would not typically be very meaningful. At the West End Animal Wellness Center, artist Ashley Dopson changed this normally transitory stretch of blacktop into a space evoking both joy and contemplation.

Working with pictures supplied by the veterinarian, Dopson painted lively images of current canine and feline patients on the building’s gray back wall. Next, she turned the red fence on the opposite side of the lot into a pet portrait memorial wall that will put a lump into the throat of anyone who has ever seen their furry best friend close their eyes for the final time.

Landscape murals by Gordon Anderson greet passengers at the North Avenue MARTA Station platform. “I wanted the commuters to experience the distorted sensations of a pilot flying into the (station),” Anderson says. (Courtesy of MARTA)

5-6. MARTA’s North Avenue and Edgewood-Candler Park stations

In the past, the entire MARTA transit system could have been viewed as one giant sprawling liminal space. Katherine Dirga, MARTA’S director of Art in Transit, is changing that.

“Art and culture humanize a busy or overwhelming environment, (bringing) a sense of safety with it,” said Dirga. “For MARTA, art also becomes a way for us to honor the communities we serve. When stations reflect local stories, values and creative voices, they signal that riders are not just passing through anonymous space. They belong there.”

At the North Avenue MARTA Station, a large experiential mural by Gordon Anderson turns the normally mind-numbing task of descending into the liminal space of a train station on its head.

“I wanted the commuters to experience the distorted sensations of a pilot flying into the North Avenue Station,” Anderson said.

Gliding down the escalator while concentrating on the mural depicting an aerial landscape does indeed create the illusion of flying — it’s enough to make you look up from your phone. In a twist of irony, the feeling of soaring continues as you descend even farther underground with more aerial landscape murals on the train platforms.

At the Edgewood-Candler Park MARTA station, a concrete elevator tower sits at the south end of the bridge connecting the trains to the parking garage. Milagros Collective, founded by Felici Asteinza and Joey Fillastre, applied a full building façade mural to the structure. The artwork, titled “Conduit,” transformed this previously nondescript liminal space within a liminal space into a jaw-dropping three-dimensional immersive experience with the qualities of an optical illusion.

"Synchronicity" by Krista Jones (a.k.a. JONESY) as seen from outside the Sugarloaf Parkway/I-85 underpass. (Arthur Rudick)

7. Sugarloaf Parkway underpass at I-85

Sugarloaf Parkway in Gwinnett County is a 10-lane behemoth passing under the 16-lane colossus of I-85. It’s an intersection traveled by you and 399,999 of your “closest friends” per day. It’s a place of connection. It’s a place of congestion. It’s a liminal space of massive proportions.

The Sugarloaf Community Improvement District called upon Krista Jones, aka JONESY, to come up with a mural of equally massive proportions to transform this underpass into an immersive art experience. Together with assistants Joe Dreher, Muhammad Suber, Miles Davis, Aida Alarcón and Alex Ferror, JONESY rose to the occasion with the 21,000-square-foot mural “Synchronicity,” the largest underpass mural in Georgia.

Using Gwinnett County’s tagline “Vibrantly Connected” as a starting point, JONESY drew upon images from her “Formations” series of murals using large-scale repeating motifs, bright colors and artifacts of the natural world to convert an impersonal concrete mega box into a rolling art gallery.

JONESY's mural "Synchronicity" is the largest underpass mural in Georgia. (Arthur Rudick)

In a recent interview with Gwinnett Forum, JONESY said, “Synchronicity speaks to the unseen connections that guide us. I wanted these walls to come alive with energy — transforming concrete into an experience that reminds people they’re part of something larger. I hope it offers moments of joy and belonging along the way.”

We often hear adages such as “life is a journey” and that one should “stop and smell the roses.” When one finds art in liminal spaces, it offers an opportunity to pause to smell the proverbial roses as our journey continues.

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Arthur Rudick created the Atlanta Street Art Map in 2017 after retiring as an engineer with Eastman Kodak and the Coca-Cola Company. His first art experience was viewing an Alexander Calder mobile as a child in the Pittsburgh airport.

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