Estria

Life and career

Estria has been spray painting since 1984. He moved to San Francisco in the early 1980s for college, where he attended both the University of San Francisco and the Academy of Art in San Francisco for a BFA in Illustration. In 1994, he was arrested for graffiti and appeared on CNN, the National Enquirer, the San Francisco Chronicle and The San Francisco Examiner. The coverage served as a platform for him to speak on graffiti's social and political impact, which he had already been doing as a lecturer at different universities.

His work as an educator, activist, and entrepreneur shaped him to spearhead several organizations and businesses. In 2002, he founded Oakland-based Tumis Design, a company that develops graphic communications and web applications for non-profits and foundations. He founded Samurai Graphix in 2007, a custom screen-printing company in neighboring San Leandro, serving Oakland's public school needs.

Community involvement / political activism

Estria co-founded Visual Element, Oakland's EastSide Arts Alliance's free mural workshop, in 2000. Visual Element targets at-risk youth and develops them into using their artistic skills. He also currently volunteers with 808 Urban, developing youth mural workshops in Honolulu, as a positive alternative to drugs and violence.

Estria Invitational Graffiti Battle

In 2007, Estria co-founded the Estria Invitational Graffiti Battle, a nationwide urban art competition that honors and advances creativity in the hip hop arts. He selects the contestants and judges, creates the activities for each city, builds vision, and finds and selects partners. The concept behind every battle is positive messaging, pushing graffiti artists to concentrate on the intent and meaning behind their work. Another force behind the battle is to encourage groups typically marginalized from graffiti culture, specifically women, to compete in painting and in judging.

Exhibitions and appearances

Films