Meet Nick Turbo Benson | Muralist & Illustrator

We had the good fortune of connecting with Nick Turbo Benson and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Nick Turbo, what led you to pursuing a creative path professionally?
You’ve got to be a little dysfunctional to pursue a career in the arts. I think the drive to create comes from a dissonance with reality and an urge to bend your surroundings into something you can understand. At least that’s how it was for me, growing up in Atlanta. I wasn’t the best student, covering my notebooks with doodles of dinosaurs when I should have been paying attention. I was always escaping into visual daydreams brought to life through my artwork.
Now that art has become my career and life’s work I no longer use it to escape. Instead, I seek to engage and interact with my surroundings and community through imagination.
Painting a mural is like performing a magic trick. You’re transforming a public space by literally creating an illusion with just line and pigment. The idea has always fascinated me.
Over time, my work has reached a wide range of clients and groups. From brands like Topo-Chico, PBR, the NBA, to organizations like Marta, or even one of my favorite hip-hop groups, Run the Jewels, featuring Atlanta legend, Killer Mike.
Whether I’m working with a restaurant, brewery, office, or local government, etc. my goal is to amplify a client’s vision through my own creative lens, transforming spaces into something memorable. As an illustrator and muralist, I aim to create portals to alternate worlds and narratives that hopefully make the viewers day a bit more magical.

Alright, so let’s move onto what keeps you busy professionally?
The trajectory of my career has been anything but a steady upward climb. It’s been full of peaks and valleys that have pushed me to adapt and reinvent. Especially now, in the age of AI. My work spans from giant multi-story murals painted with rollers and spray paint to finely detailed digital illustrations, but there’s a common thread that runs through all of it. Beyond my signature bold colors and intricate style, I always strive to infuse a strong sense of narrative. I draw inspiration from the things I love: nature, music, movies, comics, and the culture of my hometown, Atlanta. Rather than telling the viewer how to feel, I aim to spark their imagination by implying a story just beyond the frame, one compelling enough that they feel the urge to write the rest of it in their mind.

If you had a friend visiting you, what are some of the local spots you’d want to take them around to?
I love showing newcomers around Atlanta, it lets me vicariously experience the city for the first time all over again. Chances are, whatever preconceptions they have about this town are way off. I like to start on Carroll Street, one of the most unique stretches in the city. You might mistake it for a block in New Orleans’ French Quarter.
From there, we’d head down Wylie Street to check out the 50+ murals from the Forward Warrior festival, curated by my good pal Peter Ferrari. Don’t forget to stop at the 97 Estoria patio for a stiff drink before making your way through the ever-changing, graffiti adorned Krog Street Tunnel. After that, you can hop on the BeltLine and follow it all the way to Piedmont Park. If you’re looking for something a little more off the beaten path, check out an art show at South River Art Studios, ABV Gallery, or Cat Eye Creative. Atlanta’s creative scene is deep, weird, and often blurs the line between an art show and a party.

Shoutout is all about shouting out others who you feel deserve additional recognition and exposure. Who would you like to shoutout?
It might sound a little cheesy but I have to shout out my mom, a retired school librarian, for her unwavering support. I think the act of creating art is inherently done through a connection to our sense of childlike wonder, and she helped nurture that in me from an early age.
She never hesitated to feed my imagination with fantasy novels, scary movies, comics, and yes, even video games. Media literacy plays such a big role in shaping what we create. Ideas don’t form in a vacuum, they’re shaped by our experiences, the stories we consume, and the emotions they spark. My mom understood that, and I’m grateful she encouraged my weirdness from an early age. Shout out to all the librarians, or “media-specialists” as they might prefer.

Website: https://nickturbobenson.com/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nick_turbo_art/

Image Credits
Ames Doyle
Dave Roland