Gajin Fujita at Kravets/Wehby

Los Angeles-based, Japanese-American graffiti aficionado Gajin Fujita began each of the five paintings (all 2003) in his recent show by coating wood panel with gold leaf. On top of the gold, which could be construed as garish or holy, or perhaps both, Fujita writes with spray paint in a swift, sure-handed manner similar to that with which he's spent many years tagging city walls. He belongs to the widely esteemed West Coast graffiti-writing crew, K2S (Kill to Succeed). Fujita also pays homage to the teamwork ethos of graffiti by inviting his K2S friends to bomb his paintings with graffiti of their own. Given the opportunity, Fujita's pals tend to ridicule him (in a metalanguage unrecognizable to the vast majority of gallery-goers) for being the kind of sell-out sissy who would stoop so low as to make work for a gallery (as opposed to painting the noble, illegal, ephemeral variety of art to which they're communally dedicated).

Using acrylic over the gold leaf and spray paint, Fujita adds figurative elements that are at once pretty and fierce. Samurai, demons, kung-fu fighters, lotus flowers, fancy fish and geishas rest cheek by jowl with the more meticulously designed graffitiesque verbiage. In Thunder Bolt, a well-muscled blue guy with horns, fangs and flowing crimson hair brandishes a pair of sticks, as if in the middle of a martial arts exercise. The word "bolt," outlined in yellow and filled in with an elaborate, abstract gray pattern reminiscent of a disco ball, rests behind him. "Thunder" runs vertically along the left-hand side of the piece, stenciled in black in a small, gothic font.

Another sharp-toothed, horned demon--this one vermilion--appears in Area 213. Here, the monster wears a hoop earring and clutches the numbers "213" (which take up roughly half of the six-panel piece) in a clawed hand. The numerals not only look gorgeous, but also give a shout-out to Fujita's native area code. Fujita gives New York City its due in Motley Crue, another large, six-panel painting that includes four historically recognizable characters from Noh Theater and the letters "ws" (paying homage the West Side of Manhattan, which includes Chelsea, where Kravets/Wehby is located). Autumn leaves, a phenomenon associated more with the East Coast than with California, adorn the word "motley," writ large across the middle of the piece.

Because of the combination of the insider semiotics of graffiti, hip-hop and Japanese culture, only a select few will be able to "read" Fujita's work properly. What's clear, though, is that the unusual melange of elements has autobiographical and allegorical significance for the artist, and allows him to create his heady (and fabulously good-looking) portraits of a rich, exotic cultural heritage. But perhaps most importantly, Fujita's paintings accomplish what all good graffiti (or good art, for that matter) sets out to do: it boasts, it contends, it makes a name for someone, and it claims some serious turf.

COPYRIGHT 2004 Brant Publications, Inc.
COPYRIGHT 2004 Gale Group