Art by Gajin Fujita

Fujita grew up in East Los Angeles running with local graffiti crews K2S and KGB before channeling that same spray-can vocabulary into fine-art paintings that layer Japanese ukiyo-e imagery, samurai, demons, gold and silver leaf, folding-screen compositions, over unmistakably Los Angeles street lettering and tagging. Born to Japanese immigrant parents, he holds a BFA from Otis College of Art and Design and an MFA from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. His work has been shown at LACMA and the Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art, treating two visual traditions that rarely share a canvas, centuries-old Japanese woodblock printmaking and contemporary LA graffiti, as if they'd always belonged together.