But where does the graffiti end and the gallery-worthy work begin? It's an old story already, one that dates back to the heyday of Jean-Michel Basquiat and Keith Haring.
Soto's artistic turning point came with maturity: "Once you reach your mid-twenties in the graffiti world, reality starts setting in," he says. "I just realized, 'Wow. I could go to jail for this.'" Education also plays a role: For local artist Chris Huth, a reformed graffitist and recent Rocky Mountain College of Art and Design grad who will share the spotlight with Soto and others, graffiti, though viscerally still a part of him, is just a big step in a more socially acceptable direction. And Huth's star is definitely rising: In addition to his pieces in Urban Angst, DC will hang a solo display of his work in September.
The spray can was Huth's first true paint medium, when he was a directionless Albuquerque high-schooler who liked to draw. "But there were no good art teachers there, so I did graffiti instead," he says. "Basically, I vandalized our school, and that was my art school." His Albuquerque crew broke up after a bust when he was eighteen; since then, he's been off the street physically, although, as one painting in the DC show, Strong Roots, deftly illustrates, the street is still with him. "It ends up in everything you do," he says, "whether you like it or not."
That's a good thing, Soto points out: "The cool thing about graffiti art is that it's very raw. It's artwork made to be looked at by the public, put out there on display where people can enjoy it without having a master's degree in art theory." And if anything, it's that spirit that remains with artists like Soto and Huth, long after the spray-paint high disperses.
