Those driving or walking along Punahou in recent weeks may have noticed a man wearing VR goggles and spray painting the wall of a church.
That man is none other than famed muralist Todd “Estria” Johnson, who mixed virtual reality with spirituality to create a 12 by 25 foot mural on the side of the Lutheran Church of Honolulu.
The public artwork is part of the Estria Foundation’s Mele Murals project, which invites community members to get involved in the process so they can learn more about native Hawaiian plants and culture.
HPR sat down with Johnson to learn more about his artistic method and how the latest mural at Punahou came to be.
For this mural, Johnson relied upon the community members of the church to help conceive the idea for the artwork.
“We teach them to meditate, and in that meditation, we believe that we’re under the heavens to receive inspiration, and we’re on the land to take care of it,” Johnson said.
It’s a spiritual process, he explained. “I think teaching people to turn off their brain and open their naʻau and receive inspiration is huge.”
Each mural is site specific and rooted in ‘āina. Johnson explained how the latest mural was designed with the church’s historic location in mind.
“In the meditation, we asked the ʻāina what we should paint, and so we see what ideas come to them,” he said.
“The ideas that came out of it were about a spring that was on their front lawn before…they said that a long time ago, the city came and filled it in. So there's a spring, and I think that it still feels alive under the ground there.”
The mural also includes depictions of rainbows, Kōnāhuanui Ridge, manu-o-Kū and other images of nature tied to the location at Punahou.
According to Johnson, collaboration is what enriches each mural with cultural and community value.
“I think the ideas that come to me that way are way cooler than what I come up with,” he said. For him, artistic skill is a service he offers to his community.
“Some would say that every creature in the universe was designed for giving, right? The tree gives you air or fruit and other things like that, right? Everything has something.”
More information about the Estria Foundation and the Mele Murals program can be found on their website.
This story aired on The Conversation on May 14, 2026. The Conversation airs weekdays at 11 a.m. Jinwook Lee adapted this story for the web.
