A vibrant week-long celebration of public art, music, and community that transforms San Jose into a living canvas.

San Jose Walls returns for its 9th edition from May 29 to June 8, bringing explosive color, creativity, and culture to the streets of San Jose—especially in Japantown at Empire Seven Studios at Exhibit Jtown. Artists, volunteers, creatives, and producers will come together for an exhilarating mural-painting marathon that showcases the power of endurance, imagination, and collaboration.

A Global Movement with Local Roots

San Jose Walls is more than a festival—it's part of the global World Wide Walls network, a movement that spans over 25 cities worldwide. At its core, the mission is simple but powerful: to uplift neighborhoods through public art. What started out of necessity—due to funding challenges and the loss of our physical gallery—has now come full circle. We've helped create over 100 murals throughout San Jose, transforming once-blank walls into symbols of identity, culture, and resilience.

Today, we’re proud to see public institutions, companies, and nonprofits trusting and commissioning local artists to make their mark on the city. Whether it’s their first mural or their fiftieth, these artists continue to shape San Jose’s ever-evolving visual identity.

What to Expect

There’s something truly special about watching a blank wall come to life—brushstroke by brushstroke—right before your eyes. Throughout the week, you’ll have the chance to see artists in action, painting large-scale murals creating large scale fabrication, and a sixteen foot long pop up installation in real time. You can drop in and take a free lesson from artists through observation, connect with local creatives, and bring the whole family to youth-friendly events. The energy is electric, the stories are real, and the culture is deeply rooted. This isn’t just about art—it’s about showing up for each other. It’s about shared space, shared stories, and the power of creativity to spark something bigger than all of us. Whether you’re joining a workshop, chatting with an artist, or just taking it all in, you’re part of this movement.

This year’s wonderful line up includes:

123KLAN’S name originated from the zip code of Bray-Dunes (59123), a small, internationally unknown town in northern France. Founded in 1992 by Scien and Klor, they were the only graffiti artists in this town and initially named their crew "123KINGS" as a sarcastic nod to their local dominance. 123 Klan now based in Venice, California, after 15 years in Montreal, Canada, 123KLAN is a graffiti crew founded by the French duo Scien and Mrs Klor in 1992. Tireless, effervescent and often ironic creative force, Scien and Klor have been doing their art for 3 decades in the hip-hop galaxie and beyond. Influenced by the various 90’s graffiti art expressed in Europe and New York, 123KLAN crafted an hybrid style that gained recognition. They crafted a new language in graffiti art, transcending traditional styles with sharp-angled letters in vivid colors. Their first works were enriched by huge, sharped-angled letters in acid colors and characters with fand characters with futuristic manga features. In 2001, 123KLAN members invaded the web, treating it as a new surface for their art. They merged graffiti and graphic design, using the internet as a tool for creation, expression, and dissemination. The technical rigor from graffiti and the expansive possibilities of digital technology fueled their innovative style. If one word could describe 123KLAN's style, it would be “hectic.” Their work is anything but static, exuding a violent vibrancy. Each piece is a jewel fashioned with taut lines and razor-sharp color blocks. The dynamic nature of their art is in a state of perpetual renewal, showcased in numerous exhibitions and conferences worldwide, where the duo continually demonstrates their creative energy.

Official Artists for San Jose Walls 2025

Giorgiko (pronounced JOR-jee-koh) is the moniker of husband-and-wife artists Darren and Trisha Inouye. Giorgiko’s work deals with the affective dimension of the human experience through their childlike characters and mysterious dogs who represent the innocence and carnality of the human spirit and soul. Giorgiko’s work combines the simple sweetness of Trisha’s characters with Darren’s street influence, classical painting techniques, and playfully anachronistic elements, allowing their characters to transcend space and time. Through the harmonious blending of classical and contemporary in their paintings and drawings, Giorgiko explores recurring themes of feeling displaced, discovering empathy, holding onto hope, and retaining innocence. Characters in urban clothing seem stranded in the wilderness, while characters with historical attire loiter in apocalyptic urban landscapes. Long-forgotten space dogs dream of home, and so do pink-haired girls. Through moody landscapes and childlike characters, Giorgiko hopes to create a universe paralleling our own that opens a window into seeing ourselves and others sincerely and truthfully in all of our flaws and beauty. Darren and Trisha first met during orientation at their alma mater ArtCenter College of Design in Pasadena, California. Trisha hails from a Korean immigrant family in the San Francisco Bay area and was always drawing instead of doing homework. Meanwhile, Darren is a 4th generation Japanese-American from Los Angeles who fell in love with street art in his youth. They sat next to each other in Design 1, and the rest is history. The creative duo resides in the greater Los Angeles area with their twin children.

Kensuke Takahashi from a young age, Kensuke started immersing himself in the world of fine arts. In 2005, he made a serious commitment to pursuing a career in this field. With his artistic talent and creative freedom, Kensuke ventures beyond traditional boundaries to create diverse artwork for festivals, events, business illustrations, jacket designs for musicians, and more. This expansive repertoire showcases the breadth and diversity of his artistic endeavours. In 2012, Kensuke had his debut solo exhibition in Yokohama, which was well-received and led to further recognition in Tokyo and Nagoya. His solid descriptive ability, precise, technique, free imagination that transcends reality, Kensuke is active in a wide range of craft of artwork. His crafts includes, large-scale artwork for the government, mural in restaurant and stores, and artwork for large corporations. Written by WAKABA

Kevin Lyons is a creative director, illustrator, and artist based in Brooklyn, NY. He has created products with Nike, Adidas, Converse, Huf, Stussy, SSUR, Stance, Umbro, Vans, Uniqlo, Mighty Healthy, CLOT, Colette, and Girl Skateboards, among others. His signature "Monster" characters have appeared on murals around the world including at Pow! Wow! Hawaii / Japan / Long Beach; Murals in the Market Detroit; Life is Beautiful, Las Vegas; Coachella; Colette in Paris; Milan Design Week; Mural Arts, Raleigh, NC; and at Stussy in Japan. As a creative director, he has worked with such clients as Nike, Converse, Umbro, Diesel, Proctor & Gamble, Coca-Cola, American Express, among others. While Managing Partner at Anomaly NYC, he won an Emmy for title design for Eric Ripert's PBS series, Avec Eric, and also a Cannes Golden Lion for his campaign for Diesel. Kevin is the former global Creative Director for Urban Outfitters. In a 7-year tenure, he helped shape the brand holistically, including: exterior signage, retail environment, digital design, packaging, posters & promotions, book and catalog design, labeling, and products. Kevin also led the acclaimed music program, oversaw the brand's PR and marketing and the corporate design for the umbrella company Urban Outfitters, Inc. In other past lives, Kevin has worked as a Design Director at Stussy Worldwide; Art Director for Spike Jonze's Girl Skateboard; US Art Director for Tokion Magazine, and Senior Designer for Nike Inc.

Songhe Kim was born 1982, in Tokyo as a third generation of the Koreans. Kim studied at the Korean school until 18 years old and entered the Oda Fashion College. After graduating the fashion college, her action to become an artist has begun. In 2005, her art piece was decorated in the window of a highly sensed store “LOVELESS” which gave a massive attention to the market and this was the start of her career as a chandelier artist. Since then, she has done many art works for brands and companies, both in and outside Japan and continues further as follows to space decoration and product designs. Her art works gets an attention beyond the sea and in 2009, Kim exhibited at “U.S.B: Emerging Korean Artists in the World 2009” held at the Hangram Art Museum in Seoul. In 2016, Kim self-published her art book “TROPHY” and at the same time she was chosen to launch a solo exhibition at the LAFORET Museum which became one of a great success in her artist career. Kim’s art is unrivaled and you can see many American toys, stuffed animals, Daruma, Manekineko, and Kumade that are collaged one by one by her hand. The technique called “Junk Collage” which Kim uses to express her art is never disconnected from her origins of the third generation of the Koreans. Her art work reflects the days that she always had to live as a minority and that even connects to an ideal of a multiculturalism. This will tell you that her art looks a little messy=JUNK but the world is balanced with a strange balance.

Spenser Little California-based artist has spent the past 15 years creating sculptures by bending and cutting wire into figurative portraits and phrases. His lightweight pieces have been installed on lamp posts and other existing structures around the world and have also been exhibited in numerous gallery shows.

According to Little, a few of his sculptures combine multiple pieces and include moving parts, though most of his work is made using one continuous piece of wire. The artist bends the rigid material using a pair of needle-nose pliers until it fits the image of his subject or his imagination. The work ranges from playful figures that interact with their surroundings to pointed commentaries on an internet and tech-obsessed society. Collectors encounter the sculptures framed and presented in a gallery setting, while others wire portraits have been left behind for pedestrians and explorers to find deep in caves and high above the streets. Known for his figurative wire pieces attached to light posts and other public fixtures around the world, Spenser Little’s recent artworks venture into the personal.

Illuminating Devices is comprised of the artist’s bent portraits and totems of merging faces, in addition to a series of irradiated kinetic sculptures. Evoking the nesting doll, these abstract figures contain spacious chest cavities that open up to reveal similar, smaller forms hidden inside.For each lamp, Little carves a wooden structure of the main character’s head, welds a metal body, and overlays the components with thin paper “skin,” repeating the process for subsequent pieces. He also seats wooden figures in the deepest caverns. The relationship between the inner and outer sculptures explores the tension between the conscious and subconscious.

A Thank You to the Dreamers

From everyone at Empire Seven Studios and San Jose Walls, thank you to those who’ve supported our wild ideas and helped turn dreams into tangible art. Whether you're a local who’s watched this movement grow, or a visitor seeing it for the first time—you are welcome here.

Come witness this living gallery in the heart of San Jose. This is what the city represents.