Pure Hart Studio was founded by McKenzie and Elliott Eddy-Smith — two lifelong artists who have spent their careers making spaces feel like somewhere special.
Elliott has been painting murals since he was a teenager on Edisto Island. Before Pure Hart, he owned and operated a design and illustration studio for over a decade, building the technical range that would later carry into Pure Hart's murals. McKenzie co-founded DD172 in TriBeCa, ran BluRoc Records in NYC, and later opened King Dusko — a Charleston, SC gallery, coffee shop, and music venue that became the heartbeat of the local scene. Long before Pure Hart had a name, she was already doing its work: cultivating a space that felt welcoming, inspiring, and distinctive.
They met in Charleston (at King Dusko) in 2014. Their first project together was an 8,000-square-foot mural — and placemaking murals have been the focus ever since.
They work nationwide now, from their home base in Woodstock, NY.
photo by Sixth House StudiosPure Hart is two artists who also know how to run a production. When a project calls for bringing in additional collaborators, we know how to get their best work out of them and keep it cohesive with the vision the whole thing is built on. That's the part that takes a career to learn — how to hold a vision steady across many hands, without flattening anyone's work into a template. We've spent our careers on both sides of that table, as artists and as producers.
We work nationwide with developers, hospitality brands, architects, and interior designers — but we've stayed intentionally boutique. It means every project gets real artistic attention. It means a first-time client with a modest budget gets the same creative rigor as a campus-wide program. And it means the work stays personal, specific, and built to last — expressing the visual soul of the places we work in. That’s our signature.
Photo by Raven B. Greene, New Moon Visuals.