Utility boxes across Los Angeles are becoming small, unexpected canvases for local artists.
In Koreatown, those boxes now carry bursts of color and meaning. Korean and Latino influences intertwine, multiple languages appear across their surfaces, and abstract symbols, like tiger lilies, native to Japan, China and Korea, sit on them, in addition to messages of unity and belonging.
The boxes introduce residents to local artists Mikki 100 and Annie Hong. The boxes also give those artists a visible way to tell their stories and in some cases, they offer a small layer of protection against any unwanted graffiti.
“I think it’s just a nice way to beautify the community,” said Hong, a local artist based in Koreatown. “It’s something you wouldn’t normally pay attention to, but it’s on every block, so why not turn it into something meaningful?”
For Mikki 100, the boxes also function as something more interactive.
“They’re almost like little bulletin boards,” she said. “People pass them every day, whether they’re walking or driving, so it’s a chance to share something positive with the neighborhood.”
Both artists were selected through a Koreatown Youth and Community Center (KYCC) initiative launched in 2023, which pairs local artists with utility boxes across the neighborhood.
Hong painted nine boxes along 3rd Street as part of a Stop the Hate campaign centered on community and belonging. Mikki painted four boxes along Wilshire Boulevard.
‘Fell in love with my country, my language’
The utility boxes are part of a broader journey, said Hong, one shaped by their upbringing as an immigrant moving across Los Angeles and finding stability through art.
Born in Korea and raised primarily in L.A., Hong arrived as a toddler with their mother, who raised them alone while working multiple jobs. Much of their childhood was defined by constantly moving from Koreatown to South L.A. to Torrance, rarely staying in one place long enough to settle in.
Hong started dedicating themself to their art around their mid-20s, when they began teaching themself how to paint.
A turning point came when they lived in Korea from 2015 to 2020.
“Those five years in Korea is when I really fell in love with my country, my language, my people and understood where I came from and getting back in touch with my roots,” they said. “In a lot of the work I do now, there’s many nods to traditional Korean elements and I do credit my years in Korea to all of those.”
Their style has changed over the years from figurative drawings to something more abstract, pattern-based, and expressive, often blending bold, graphic compositions with organic forms.
The flowers and natural elements are big and hard to miss from afar, blending different shades of the same color, like tiger lilies that have yellow centers, orange bodies and red-tipped petals, or circular shapes that look like ocean waves in varying shades of blue.
“I love capturing an essence through art that is beyond the tangible, the things that are unspoken, the things that are unable to be put into words,” they said. “My style is still constantly changing and evolving, but much more refined and focused now.”
On their utility boxes in Koreatown, that shows up in designs that feel connected but different from one another, some incorporating Korean symbols, and others more pattern-based, emphasizing shared identity across communities.
“I wanted them to have a cohesive flow, where you can tell they’re connected, but each one still feels distinct,” they said.
Now based in Los Angeles, they focus primarily on murals and public art, with projects spanning community spaces and large-scale collaborations, including commercial work with companies like Forever 21, who they did a mural for at Young Oak Kim Academy. Hong said they want to continue doing projects that give back to communities across L.A.
For Mikki, the utility boxes are part of a broader effort to document Koreatown — and to reflect its layered identity, one shaped by her own experience growing up between cultures.
“I’m not native to L.A., I’m a transplant,” she said. “I grew up in Las Vegas, and my family would drive all the way to Koreatown to get Korean groceries, music, food, newspapers. So even at a young age, I had a lot of memories of K-town, even though I did not live there.”
Mikki’s art work is centered on community. She’s collaborated with organizations like Edible LA, the Korean American Chamber of Commerce and the Los Angeles Clippers. She’s also a graphic designer for a Silver Lake-based record label.
Born in Korea, Mikki and her family relocated back and forth between the U.S. and Korea, which was a common experience growing up in a military family. The family settled in Las Vegas in the mid 90s when she was a child. Those early trips to Koreatown in LA helped shape her understanding of the neighborhood.
“It always stood out to me because back in the 90s, there wasn’t a very big Korean community near us in Vegas,” she said. “So to go to a neighborhood where you can walk down the street and overhear someone casually speak Korean and smell familiar Korean food cooking in the restaurants, it becomes a very vivid memory that stays with you.”
Later on in life, she started a project called the Koreatown Map Project: an illustrated, newspaper-style map that documents small businesses, languages and stories of everyday life in the neighborhood that Ktown residents shared with her. The project captures what she feels was often overlooked in the neighborhood, and she later created an Instagram account to expand its reach.
“That’s when I started to really think about what I can do to highlight what I love about this neighborhood,” she said. “Like the small hole-in-the-wall markets that make their own mole and serve fresh, homemade tortillas.”
Mikki’s work in general centers on signage that reminds her of businesses in Korea in the 80s, and those of hotels she grew up seeing in Las Vegas.
“And I think that all contributed to me noticing these different signs where I go,” she said. “Particularly in Koreatown. They might not be perfect. DIY’ed and a little rundown on the outside, but they represent real stories of small businesses and immigrant families who are really trying to figure it out and build a life for themselves.”
Her utility boxes reflect that same visual language. Painted in bold colors with clean, graphic lines, they mimic strip mall and storefront signage and incorporate multiple languages commonly seen across Koreatown — like Spanish, Korean, Thai and Bengali — designed to be legible both up close and at a glance.
“I wanted to bring happy and encouraging art that’s still thoughtful to the community,” she said. “Sometimes what we glimpse outside our window, is all we take in from the different places we pass through on our daily commute. And just like how I noticed these the strip mall signs fondly over the years. I wanted these utility boxes to brighten up people’s day to day in a small way.”
