Wayfinder: Juan Carlos Araujo - San Jose Museum of Art

Launched in 2021, Wayfinder is a new commissioning program by SJMA that invites Bay Area artists to design streetlight banners for temporary display in downtown San José. Juan Carlos Araujo is the second artist invited for this series, which offers pedestrians, commuters, residents, and Museum visitors continuous access to contemporary art as part of SJMA’s overarching goal to become a borderless museum, essential to creative life throughout the diverse communities of San José and Silicon Valley. Wayfinder reimagines existing banner infrastructure as a venue for public art, enlivening city streets with cutting-edge art and design.

Juan Carlos Araujo is an artist, community organizer, and director of Empire Seven Studios (E7S), a contemporary art space located in San José. Araujo cofounded E7S with his partner, Jennifer Ahn, in 2008, and together they have provided opportunities for local and global artists through public art initiatives, innovative pop-up shows, and gallery exhibitions. The artist grew up on East Santa Clara Street and remembers hanging out with friends and cruising the boulevard as a teenager. On Sundays, he would stand in line for a free meal at Roosevelt Park and then walk across the street to Chaparral Supermarket to buy groceries using food stamps. For Araujo, East Santa Clara Street was a lifeline and a lively, vibrant place. A self-taught painter with a background in graffiti and street art, Araujo creates large-scale public murals that often combine numerous small, painterly marks with striking colors to impart a sense of vitality, movement, and flow. His work evokes the spiritual energy of generations of people who have coursed through a place and honors the sacred, ancestral realms of nature.