Three New Artists To Watch

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The story below is from our September/October 2025 issue. For more stories like it, Subscribe Today. Thank you! 

Three rising Roanoke artists are making powerful community impacts through vibrant murals, imaginative portraits and deeply personal storytelling.

These days, it’s hard to imagine Roanoke without its vibrant arts scene. Murals bloom on the backs of buildings, and artists unfold easels in public parks. Everywhere you look, fresh art is emerging.

And new artists are emerging, too. 

That’s why we asked local gallery owners, instructors and established artists to point us toward a few talented creatives who are finding fresh momentum ... whether it’s in a new medium or an innovative approach.

Long story short: here are three new artists to watch.

Katrina “Trees” Legans

The Budding Muralist

Katrina Legans knew from childhood that she’d always love art. But painting public murals? That’s something she never could have imagined. 

“I think it chose me,” admits the acrylics- and airbrush-painter, who’s seen a flurry of recent projects but, until last year, had worked mostly on smaller canvases. “I always wanted to paint large, but I was a little bit intimidated by bigger wall spaces,” she remembers. 

When Opportunity Knocks ... She Paints

That began to change, Legans says, when Blue Ridge Behavioral Healthcare approached her about painting a mural. The artist was surprised, she says, but she knew she had to say yes. She reached out to art-teacher-turned-muralist Jon Murrill for help, and before she knew it, Legans was learning a new skill.

“I met with Jon and watched YouTube videos, and I slowly built that confidence ... And then I just stepped out there and did it,” she remembers.

These days, any intimidation she once felt has faded. In 2024, Legans painted her first public mural on the underside of the 10th Street Bridge, dedicating the piece to Dorothy Brown and Hazel Robinson — two beloved Northwest community members who died in the flooding of 1985.

Next, Legans worked with Restoration Housing to paint a room-sized forest inside The Grove on Patterson, a new residential treatment facility, operated by Anderson Treatment, for pregnant and parenting women battling substance abuse disorder. “I wanted to represent the trees in bloom ... new beginnings, transformation,” she explains. 

And a few months later, she joined a local graphic designer to imagine a mural for the city’s new Washington Park pool, which she recently painted alongside community members.

The momentum, she says, “leaves me speechless sometimes.”

A Deeper Purpose to the Paint

Legans sees her work as more than just paint on walls; it’s a form of community storytelling. She interviews neighborhood residents extensively before planning a piece. “I feel like we won’t know the stories unless I actually engage with people who live in these places,” she explains.

The artist, who grew up in Northwest Roanoke, credits her growth to her community: her parents, who encouraged her first attempts at art; Dr. Jeanette Manns, who helped her on her first public mural; and others. “I had a lot of good teachers, especially at William Fleming High School, who really encouraged me... and then I had a youth pastor, September Penn, who really poured into to me as a young lady coming up,” Legans adds. “I think that’s where I developed that need to give back.”

And in the next year, she plans to leverage her success to do exactly that. Legans hopes to pair her efforts with community tree-plantings to nurture the environment. “I’m one of those ’80s kids who believed in Captain Planet,” she says. “For me, the bottom line is community, giving back and helping people.”

Patrick Callaway

The [Re]Emerging Artist

Wander downtown on a clear afternoon, and you might spot a quiet young artist perched at his easel, painting a sun-splashed stretch of sidewalk. “I’m out almost every day that the weather’s nice,” says Patrick Callaway. “I just want to inspire people.”

But there was a time when Callaway wondered if he’d ever pick up a paint brush again.

A Creative Crisis ... and a Realignment

As a child, Callaway turned to art to cope, first when his father was diagnosed with cancer and then when his parents divorced. In drawing and painting, he says, he found a sense of self-expression in difficult times.

In adulthood, though, Callaway’s artistic journey began to feel more complicated. He was accepted into art school at VCU, then dropped out one month later, convinced he could learn best on his own. He returned to Roanoke and joined Gallery 202, but then left to start a gallery with two friends. And when first one and then the other partner discontinued the project, Callaway found himself adrift and questioning the purpose of his gifts ... just in time for the COVID-19 lockdowns. 

“I struggled with why I even wanted to draw,” explains Callaway, who says he quit painting for nearly four months. “Was this just because other people liked it? I had to work out my ‘why.’”

The inflection point forced him to realign his priorities, leading to a renewed commitment to his faith, and to his art. He set up a studio in a small basement space and decided to paint quietly, for its own sake.

“Today, I can say that I do the art to do it,” he says. “I do it for myself.”

A Meaningful New Momentum

On the other side of the shakeup, Callaway has clearly found a new groove. Now back at Gallery 202, he paints prolifically in his studio, which is crammed wall-to-wall with large-scale oil portraits. The pieces contain deep shadows, rich splashes of light, and — especially lately — deliberately unfinished sections: portions of raw canvas punctuated by bold, loose gestures at his subjects’ edges.

“I have more intentionality with it all now,” he says. “When I paint something, I really want to paint it.”

And while he no longer feels pressured to paint for others’ approval, others are taking note. Callaway has recently picked up commissions to paint live at weddings, and last fall, he was invited to stage a solo show at Gallery 360. There, he reunited with old friends from the art community. “It was a reboot, 100%,” he says.

Now, Callaway continues to paint people close to him — “I paint what I care about, and I care about people,” he says — but he’s increasingly experimenting with symbolic subjects, too: “knights and warriors and angels ... At this point, I’m trying to hone the imaginative side.”

Many of his fantastical subjects come with a complex backstory ... so complex, in fact, that he’s begun putting the stories into digital animations — a new personal challenge. “In the next 12 months, I want to build community with other artists, collab and work on the animation,” he says. “I can’t wait to see where it leads.”

Molly Kernan

The Community-Builder

If you’ve explored Southeast Roanoke, you’ve probably glimpsed Molly Kernan’s whimsical artwork.

On 9th Street, her bold sunflower mural splashes across the back of the Liberty Tax building. At Riverdale Village, a giant blue whale — rendered in richly-hued paint — floats up a concrete ramp. And if you’ve visited a neighborhood bus shelter, you might have seen a steel fretwork forged in the shape of butterflies, bats and flowers — a pollinator-themed design Molly created in collaboration with Valley Metro Roanoke, the Roanoke Arts Commission and RIDE Solutions, with assistance from local metal fabricators at Renaissance Contract Lighting and Furnishings.

In fact, Roanoke is a veritable scavenger hunt of Molly’s work — from painted storm drains to fairy houses tucked beneath trees — and all of it spells out a love-letter to the place she calls home ... which is why it might surprise you to learn that Kernan is a relative newcomer.

Roanoke: A Home on Purpose

There’s a reason why the artist has a soft spot for her city: “Roanoke was our first place that was totally our choice,” she says. Kernan and her husband grew up in Florida, and when the couple decided to put down new roots together, they explored well-known hotspots like Asheville and Savannah before choosing Roanoke for its accessible arts scene and outdoorsy lifestyle.

They settled in Southeast Roanoke in 2019, focused on building creative community there. “I asked myself, ‘How can I make this my home? How can I give back?’” Kernan remembers. “I felt ready for that.”

And then the COVID-19 pandemic disrupted her plans.

Finding (& Building) Community

“That was such a barrier,” Kernan remembers of that year in Roanoke. “I was pretty desperate to just get to know people and learn my new town. [COVID] made it extremely difficult, but it also just motivated me more.”

Determined, Kernan signed up for the Roanoke Arts Commission’s weekly newsletter, where she found a treasure trove of local art calls. First, she participated in a self-portrait project; then she won a grant to create a portrait of a community changemaker. She chose Sunni Purviance, the gregarious founder of IHeartSE — a connection that proved to be pivotal.

“Sunni and I just clicked,” she says. “We both had this common goal of making our neighborhood a place where we love being and everyone loves being.”

Purviance nudged Kernan to participate in the brand-new Daisy Art Parade, and when the artist agreed, she suddenly found herself building giant papier-mâché creatures alongside other community-minded creatives. “It’s a parade where artists can make art, but anyone can join in,” she explains. “I just love it.”

In the short time since Kernan moved to Roanoke, she’s painted murals and served as an artist-in-residence for the city. And this year, she created art installations for Belmont Library with students from Morningside Elementary and Garden City Elementary. The young artists were challenged to build collaborative shadowboxes celebrating their favorite things about the neighborhood. “It was so cool to see how the simplest things are what make these kids so happy to be in this community,” she says.

Today, Kernan serves as a board member for IHeartSE. She hopes to push for retaining-wall murals, craft more fairy houses with neighbors and perhaps even launch a local fairy trail... as well as tackle some personal projects, like more illustrated books, along with works exploring her journey with chronic illness. But wherever her creativity leads, she hopes to help others find belonging through art.

“I just love being here, and I want everyone to feel that way,” she says.

The story above is from our September/October 2025 issue. For more stories like it, Subscribe Today. Thank you!