A local OG graffiti king innovates by keeping it old school.
The history of graffiti art in the public consciousness owes its duplicity to the fact that the medium of choice is borrowed canvases from liminal spaces of urban geometry. After more than 60 years of urban graffiti, the art form still exists in a precarious space between acceptance and distaste. As the art form progressed over the years—from its origins with artists like NYC’s TAKI 183 tagging subways in the 1960s and 70s—graffiti innovators and legends were born. Almost anyone, regardless of their interest in art, will be familiar with the names Picasso, Monet, or Dalí. Graffiti artists, however, don’t hold the same place in society’s consciousness, despite the fact that pivotal figures from around the world—like Futura 2000, Cap, Skeme, and Cornbread—are essential to the evolution and development of graffiti as a true art form. One of our own homegrown legends goes by the name King157 and has been putting up his heart and soul on walls and trains for 40 years now.
Decoto, a small town that was eventually absorbed by Union City and Fremont, was predominantly populated by Mexican Americans during World War II. By the 1970s, at the height of the Chicano Movement and as gentrification gripped Decoto neighborhoods, racial tensions gave way to riots. The community expressed their stance during this struggle through graffiti. At this moment in time and place, King was two years old, living with his family in the heart of the fray.
“I represent the old school, using the gift I was given to produce high quality professional graffiti art…and yes, that name will always be associated with the word ‘outlaw.’ ”
King moved to San Jose before he was nine but often visited his family in Decoto on the weekends. One of his earliest memories of picking up a spray can was painting a Schwinn Lowrider bike when he was seven years old. He was constantly surrounded by letters, fonts, and the beauty of creating. He remembers the Old English cholo lettering tattooed on his tíos and his mom, Sally, drawing and writing beautiful poems. Sally and his Tía Sandra take credit for teaching him how to color, blend, and stay inside the lines. As King drove back and forth between Decoto and San Jose, the “cholo gangster letters” seen on highways 680 and 101 started to make an impression on him.
By the 1980s, King157 was putting up his own pieces and burners. He is known for his clean, thin, and complex lines in his lettering, his use of vibrant colors, and his b-boy and b-girl characters that harken back to 1970s comic characters Puck and Cheech Wizard. King was inspired by everything from Teen Angels magazine, comic books, Saturday morning cartoons, and even the Yellow Pages. “Back then you didn’t have the internet,” he explains. “I rode my trusty Mongoose BMX all over Northside and Eastside San Jo, then took the bus to Bart to Oakland and San Francisco. I said to myself, ‘There have to be other crazy guys that love this shit as much as I do.’ So I would explore and document the art form called graffiti art with my 110 Kodak camera (thanks, ma!). This new graffiti movement was made up by kids…remember that part,” King says. He drew further inspiration from local artists, such as Mix 182, T.G.K. Crew, Nexus, and T.D.K. Crew.
King has been fine-tuning his style ever since then, while staying true to the origins of his style. “I tried all styles, experimented in the 1980s and all of the ’90s, but in the great year of Y2K 2000, I had to ask myself, ‘Why did I start writing in the first place?’ Simple answer: It was all about letters, and it will always be about letters. So I broke down my style to no connections, no loop-de-loops, no doodads, or arrows…just the funk, the essence of the letter.”
Though he has witnessed the evolution of graffiti over the past 40 years, King still believes it hasn’t found its proper respect as an art form among the general public. Muralists have benefited from the many attempts by communities to provide a space for the art form, but for King, graffiti is not graffiti if it’s officially sanctioned. That is the beauty of it—the disapproval of graffiti became part of the fabric of its history and identity. King relates, “I represent the old school, using the gift I was given to produce high-quality professional graffiti art…and yes, that name will always be associated with the word ‘outlaw.’ ”
Graffiti work keeps you on the move, and King is no exception. He is still rocking his 1980s flavors, most recently at the famed 44th annual Graffiti Hall of Fame in Harlem, where he shared his work with top graffiti artists around the world. “You can say I’m living in a dream, another revolution in the circle of life. Rock on King157, the last of the Mohicans.”
Follow KING157 at: 1984.yo
Check out King’s new mural in Downtown San Jose at South First Street and San Salvador, on the south side of The Studio Climbing.
