If you’ve stopped by the Joe’s Deli on Hertel Avenue recently, you may have noticed the sudden appearance of massive, two-story buffalo standing in a turquoise-green field alongside colorful flowers, birds, and more abstract geometric patterns. This is Los Angeles–based artist Bunnie Reiss’s Magic Buffalo, the latest mural project organized by the AK Public Art Initiative.

Reiss developed her signature palette and imagery by combining aspects of her Polish and Russian heritage—especially Poland’s brightly colored folk art and the magical worlds of Russian fairytales—with an interest in unseen histories and our connection to animals and nature. But she is principally interested in what other people might find in her work. “I want people to feel good when they’re looking at my work,” she has said. “Mural painting has a real function in a community: it beautifies neighborhoods, shares stories, encourages people to interact and gather, helps people slow down their busy lives. . . . The public has a right to beautiful things.”