“There are so many artists who just want to express themselves,” shares Juan Carlos Araujo, founder and creative director of Empire Seven Studios and SJ Walls. Araujo, an artist who grew up in San Jose, first painted on walls doing graffiti. He founded Empire Seven Studios, an independent small business that includes a gallery and creative studio, in 2008. In 2013, the studio began to bring art to public walls—a DIY movement at a time when street art began to take off. “I was traveling a lot and saw what was happening in other cities, specifically cities that might not have had a lot of public art but began to embrace it, and it became this explosive movement that started to really take off. I wanted to bring that to San Jose,”
Araujo reflects.

In 2017, Empire Seven founded SJ Walls (formerly POW! WOW! San Jose), an annual mural festival as part of the larger international cohort of public art festivals, Worldwide Walls. The festival has brought dozens of murals to downtown San Jose, including the largest mural in the city. For Araujo, the festival has provided artists with the opportunity to play and express themselves: “Even if they are getting some of the best commission work at the biggest companies, artists still want an opportunity to come to an event like SJ Walls where they can be themselves and express themselves as freethinkers.”  

Empire Seven Studios / SJ Walls
525 N. 7th Street, Suite 10 
empiresevenstudios.com | sjwalls.com

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