Disconnect
2025 Street Wise Mural Festival
Location: North alley behind OZO Coffee, 1521 Pearl, Boulder, CO 80302
Photos by Jeff Goldberg, Peter Fitzgerald, and Yukai Tomsovic
For #2025SWMF, Jorge Cuartas utilizes bold graffiti lettering, lush drips of color, and out-of-the-box characters to create an mesmerizing experience for viewers who stumble upon his mural Disconnect in the back alley behind OZO Coffee.
A larger-than-life snail wears a jet pack with human-like hands stretching from the pack. Most joyfully, his shell creates the shape of a large heart from which his purple body is covered with neon pink stripes. The snail’s googly eyes peer over a wooden mask toward a giant robot. His robot companion looks out toward the viewer with hollow red eyes and a smile of humanlike teeth. A heart adorns the chest of its robotic body while it gives the classic horns gesture with its hand. Jorge weaves juicy swathes of color behind the figures, allowing the spray paint to drip in some places to create a vivid atmosphere.
Above the duo, Jorge includes a traditional graffiti lettering piece. In the 70s and 80s, graffiti writers began to create an alternative aesthetic through this type of stylized lettering. Writers use this common language to communicate with one another, placing pieces, throw-ups, and tags publicly without permission. Often, graffiti writing represents an act of resistance against capitalism and public authority. Contemporary street art evolved from graffiti writing.
“The best part of participating in the Mural Fest is the interaction with the community,” says Jorge Cuartas. “While some might not quite understand the concept, it’s nice to show them that you don’t have to be afraid of everything that you don’t understand.” While not everyone who walks by Jorge’s mural may understand the aesthetics of graffiti lettering, its inclusion in the mural hopefully sparks curiosity to learn more.
Jorge is an OG of the graffiti world and a pioneer of the art form. He started writing in 1985 and painted every major city in the US by 1994. He continues to draw everyday and paint unauthorized weekly. “I really see no difference in this from the work I might do at night (so to speak),” explains the artist. “The scale might be a bit larger, but the idea/thought process behind it is the same.”
His compulsion to draw so frequently allows the artist to think of new characters like the heart adorned snail and robot. Drawing offers him a therapeutic release, something he wants to create for the viewers of this mural. Jorge intends Disconnect to provide a thought-provoking space for viewers to escape the real world. It is a space for a brain break, to slow down and leave behind the noise of the outside world for a moment. Hopefully it sparks some joy.
About the Artist:
Jorge Cuartas (born 1972) has been painting graffiti since 1985. Heralded as one of the pioneers of the art form, he has been credited as the first graffiti artist to paint in Costa Rica and Colombia. Cuartas is also the first Miami graffiti artist invited to paint New York City’s legendary “Wall Of Fame.” Cuartas began traveling the US to paint as many cities as possible while earning his BFA in Illustration and Graphic Design from Savannah College of Art & Design. By 1994, he had painted every major city between both coasts.
Career-wise, Cuartas has somehow managed to support his family as a professional hobbyist of sorts. Working in everything from Skateboarding, to Mountain Biking, Triathlons, BMX, Road Racing, and Motocross as a competitor, team manager, event producer, writer, designer, illustrator, and editor. The Renaissance Man lifestyle has provided him with the work ethic necessary to successfully execute all manner of projects on time, and under budget.
While graffiti has been a passion of his, Cuartas has avoided going down the gallery route, instead opting to keep his art as something both personal and therapeutic. Keeping it fun, and non-stressful has allowed him the freedom to evolve stylistically; while the lack of pressure to produce even when not motivated, has kept him from burning out. Now in his fifties, Cuartas paints weekly, while balancing a successful career in action sports, school activities, soccer, and the parenting of his three teenaged children.