Apopka Murals is starting its 2026 wall mural lineup strong, introducing nationally recognized artist Ben Keller to downtown Apopka through a new orange grove mural. 

“Once I met him, I knew he was going to be perfect for what we’ve been curating down here,” said Apopka Murals founder Luis Rivera. “He’s a very well-established person, so I think that will help out as well — motivate the community and our community and show everybody else outside of Apopka that there’s something going on in Apopka.” 

The northern wall of Chito’s Cutz, located at 433 S. Central Avenue, currently serves as Keller’s canvas and depicts vibrant, lifelike orange trees. Keller expects to finish the project early next week. 

Keller has painted portraits up and down the East Coast, with his artwork also appearing in Ecuador and France. He recently painted two murals of Iryna Zarutska, a young Ukrainian refugee murdered in North Carolina late last year, as part of a project funded by Johan McCabe and Elon Musk. 

“[Elon Musk] put a bunch of money to any artists that were willing to paint her face anywhere, and they were able to pay for everything,” Rivera said. “So he did several of these around the United States, which I thought that was pretty impressive, and just the fact that we can have someone worldwide, even nationwide, come over here and adorn our Apopka murals…I think that that can help out as well.”  

Keller frequently travels to Orlando for art projects, one of which inspired Rivera to reach out to Keller about working with Apopka Murals. Keller said Apopka reminded him of where he grew up in Connecticut. 

“I come from towns that once were something else and now have turned into a different type of — they haven’t degraded, but they just lost the main foundation of what they were based on,” Keller said. “I was raised in a farm town. I think it has a special place to me.” 

Late last year, Rivera had shown Keller potential walls he could paint.  

“Back in either October [or] November, when I drove up to meet Luis for the first time at his barbershop, he just sort of took me around that vicinity that has the murals in the alleyway where the No Borders Art Competition is held,” Keller said. “So that whole block, he just showed me what they had already done, and then pointed out some potential future walls that I could paint.” 

When Keller created a design for the Chito’s Cutz wall, he discovered that the barbershop’s owner had also envisioned an orange grove painting. Coincidentally, Chito also hails from Connecticut. 

“He was envisioning maybe doing some orange grove scene due to the history of Apopka having a large agricultural community, so I thought that would be really cool to tie in,” Keller said. “It matched up.” 

Although Keller enjoys painting portraits, he considers his first collaboration with Apopka Murals a welcome break. 

“To go back to nature was a nice vacation, or a nice little shift in gears from the normal subject matter I focus on,” Keller said. “There’s a lot of detail on it, but I really enjoy that challenge, so it hasn’t been burdensome at all.” 

Keller hopes his first Apopka Murals project will honor Apopka’s history and “enhance the attitude or perception of someone’s day.” 

“Even some of the guys that were at the shop, they’re like, ‘Oh, yeah, I remember growing up back in the ‘90s, and there was orange fields all over the place, like that’s all you saw, and then they just cut them all down,’” Keller said. “There’s still people in that area, they remember when the orange trees were there. So this kind of brings them back to that sentimental moment, or that childhood moment.”