Featured Mohawk Valley Artist: Angela DeCarlis

The Mohawk Valley is so fortunate to have resident artists who use their talents to create very special spaces. Stroll through your community and maybe you’ll be taken with a colorful mural that gives you reason to pause and enjoy the moment. The artists that take the time to create these spaces do it for you. They work together and make these places for us to enjoy while they created memories together.

This week, we’re happy to highlight Angela DeCarlis as our Featured Mohawk Valley artist!

About Angela DeCarlis

Angela DeCarlis, MBA, is a professional muralist, visual artist, and creative entrepreneur whose work centers on connection—between people and place, memory and imagination, story and space. Through vibrant color, layered symbolism, and a deeply collaborative process, she creates large-scale murals that serve as visual anchors for communities, reflecting shared identity, lived experience, and a sense of belonging.

With more than twenty years of artistic practice and over a decade dedicated to public art, Angela has completed murals throughout the Mohawk Valley and beyond for schools, theaters, small businesses, and cultural organizations. She operates under Be. Life, Art, Magic, her creative business through which she develops public art projects, educational programming, and community-centered initiatives. Her mural work is grounded in listening, research, and relationship-building, resulting in art that is emotionally resonant, visually rich, and built to endure.

In addition to her mural practice, Angela is an integrative life coach and creative facilitator who supports artists in building sustainable, values-aligned careers. She is the co-creator of the Artist Refinery, a professional development program designed to help artists launch and grow creative businesses, developed in partnership with Mohawk Valley Community College and co-created with Ryan Miller of The thINCubator, the college’s entrepreneurial innovation hub. While mentorship and entrepreneurship inform her approach, mural painting remains her primary medium and public offering.

She is currently working on a large-scale mural project at Johnson Park Center in Utica, New York, in collaboration with The Art Thing Collaborative.

Angela is also one of six Mohawk Valley artists featured in an upcoming documentary currently in production, which explores the creative process and community impact of working artists. Local screenings are planned, with details to be announced in 2026.

The Art Thing Collaborative Team

“We first Angela when she volunteered her skills at the Stone Soup mural. When we needed a lead artist to do the mural at Johnson Park Center Angela was one of the first artists who came to mind, and it was one of those meant to be, in total alignment kind of things. She’s really so multi-talented and so inspiring!  Angela never stops offering up those teaching moments, and we’ve really loved getting to work with her and learn from her! She’s truly a force!”- Carly Proux, The Art Thing Collaborative

Many thanks to Angela for her inspiring creativity with Mohawk Valley Today!