Oliver Casillas paints murals about what holds people together. Born in Guadalajara in 1995, he studied art there and at a university in Namur, Belgium, and now works in Oregon. He is trained in painting, sculpture and ceramics, and has also worked as a tattoo artist.
I believe art has the power to build bridges, create dialogue, and transform public spaces.
His murals draw on Mexican culture and on the landscapes of here and there: the Sonoran Desert and the border, Oregon's rivers and birds, a ram's skull standing in for life and death. His Portland mural What Keep us Together (2020) was one of the five founding murals of Portland Street Art Alliance's Central Eastside Mural District. In downtown Medford, his 2024 mural features the Rogue River and the western meadowlark. In 2025 he led a four-weekend mural workshop with Portland Street Art Alliance that produced So Far and So Close (Nature from Here and There).
At Hopscotch his wall is hot pink: a vulture in dense black linework, like a woodcut, perched over a desert of saguaro and yellow brush. Walls Within, curated with Portland Street Art Alliance, at Hopscotch Portland.
