Visiting Resident: Jose Vazquez

Allerton’s recent Visiting Resident, Jose Vazquez, has loved art since he can remember.

“I think since I could hold a pencil, I knew exactly that’s what I wanted to do,” he said. “I wanted to do something in art.”

While growing up in Chicago in the 80s and 90s, he was exposed to a lot of the “hip hop culture,” including graffiti, and was amazed at kids from his neighborhood who were doing public murals in spray paint.

“I ended up being one of those kids who got into a ‘crew’ as a young kid and did the whole tagging,” he explained.

Jose described a crew as a group of kids with a unique name who would hang out and “tag” together.

“A graffiti writer’s tag was unique to the “writer” and the goal was always about “getting up”—getting their name out,” Jose explained. “Graffiti started as tagging and a way to gain fame within their inner circle and eventually the whole city. Tagging evolved into stylized letter writing, becoming a unique art style and a way for young inner-city artists to express themselves – a style that has evolved into a cultural movement.”

He explained that today there are “aerosol artists” who use spray paint as their medium but do not vandalize property, and there are still true graffiti artists, “bombers,” whose main goal is to tag and paint as much as possible without permission for notoriety.

“Both express themselves artistically,” Jose said.

As they got older, Jose’s crew, “DC5 (Def Con 5),” started asking neighborhood shops if they could have permission to paint on their walls. Many of the shops had ugly tags and scribbles or gang graffiti. Most gang graffiti revolved around the idea of “turf,” where gangs marked their territory and intimidated rival gangs. Jose and his crew would come in and create colorful murals that would brighten up the walls.

“As a kid who loved art, I always loved the artistic aspect of it,” he said.

So, he was thrilled when they started getting “permission walls.”

“At the beginning, we wouldn’t charge, we were just excited we found a spot to paint and not have to run away,” he said.

As others started to notice their artwork, they got more clients who asked them to paint their apartments, garage doors, and businesses, and the crew started making a name for themselves.

Although Jose graduated from Columbia College in 1995 with a degree in illustration and minor in fine arts, he continued to rely on his graffiti art for exposure and work. Clients included the Chicago Transit Authority and the Chicago Public Library, in addition to private commissions.

After earning a second bachelor’s in 3-D modeling and animation Jose got away from graffiti art for a while. He worked with a start-up company on an animated film and did character design for a video game company before moving to Champaign in 2006.

There, Jose worked as a concept artist for Volition doing characters, environments, and props, including work on popular games Saints Row (2, 3, and 4) and Red Faction. After nearly ten years, he left to do freelance work, getting back into his original love of illustration, and ultimately, back to spray paint art.

“A friend of mine from Volition was starting up a gym and he knew that I used to do artwork with spray paint,” Jose recalled. “I did some artwork for them and they loved it. Word started getting around and people started hearing that I was doing mural work.”

His work in Champaign includes multiple murals at the Champaign Public Health Department, as well as the Martens Center and various local businesses.

“The past few years I’ve been busy with mural work, which is pretty fun,” he said. “Kind of full circle, I guess.”

Allerton is Jose’s first residency, and it has been a welcome opportunity to take time for himself and think about what is next in his career. He hosted a sold-out public workshop to share spray paint techniques (artwork pictured below) and spent time creating a fu dog mural (below).

Thanks to Len Lewicki for supporting Jose’s residency. Find information about Allerton’s In-Residence program here.