If you take a stroll around Downtown San Jose, it's hard to miss the vibrant and colorful murals which decorate the sides of the various buildings and walls.
With many of the murals portraying issues regarding social justice, one local muralist decided he wanted to brighten up downtown with his own art.
Patrick Hofmeister is a San Jose native who found his passion in creating art that looks at human behavior and expressing that in his murals which are located throughout San Jose and Northern California.
He said his murals mainly examine the social, environmental and interpersonal changes happening around him.
“We’re seeing so much of it right now, so much human behavior and it’s mostly in its worst places,” Hofmeister said. “We’re looking at something that’s so blatantly in our face as far as reaction to our behavior on a planetary and global scale.”
Hofmeister’s mural “Labor Of Our Fruit,'' located in Downtown San Jose, on Third Street and St. John Street, is dedicated to immigrant farm workers in California’s fields.
The mural is painted on the side of a parking garage and uses vibrant purple, blue, yellow and black colors throughout the piece. Hofmeister drew a honeybee in the center of the artwork inside a purple painted spiral. Above and below the honeybee are yellow wave-like designs with hints of a bold blue within them.
“People who are constantly on the grind, that just put in the work, and excel because of the hard work they put in, is a big inspiration for me,” Hofmeister said referring to immigrant farm workers.
He said that the honeybee is the center of the mural because, just like essential immigrant workers, honeybees aren't native to California, but are responsible for the state’s agriculture boom. He said this illustrates how essential immigrant workers are to the state.
Although Hofmeister took an interest in art as early as third grade, he started his career as an artist after living in the Bill Wilson Center in his early adulthood.
The center offers a transitional housing program that supplies services for homeless youth between the ages of 18 and 24.
Before living at the center, Hofmeister didn’t know how far his talents as an artist could reach.
“When I was doing art more regularly on my own, and before I took it seriously, I didn’t know what I could do with it,” Hofmeister said.
Even though he wasn’t always present in the graffiti scene, he said it was this kind of artwork that mainly got him interested in creating art.
However it wasn’t until his house monitor, Marcus Reposar, who spends time interacting with residents at the center, gave him some direction that Hofmeister started to take art seriously.
“I thought that if [I] wanted to be an artist and make money, then [I had] to be a tattoo artist,” Hofmeister said.
Reposar, manager of New School Tattoo at the time, sat Hofmeister down and asked him what about his work was tattooed related. Hofmeister said he didn’t have an answer because tattooing wasn’t what he really wanted to do.
“Although I was always supportive of his passion, I knew tattooing wasn’t for him,” Reposar said.
When Hofmeister came to the same conclusion, he decided to push his boundaries as an artist further.
Soon after, he discovered a love for huge surrealist art. It was then that Hofmeister decided that his real love as an artist was creating murals.
Most of his murals have been painted with a free-form style, which means he doesn’t structure or outline what he’s about to paint; he said it’s about capturing the right feeling at that moment.
Hofmeister said that his work really dives into the patterns that we see within human behavior.
“The best way I can do that is to look at myself. What are all the things that are going on within myself, that I see in others and could use some reflecting on,” Hofmeister said.
Reposar explained how proud he is of everything Hofmeister has accomplished in his career as an artist so far.
“I really put him on a pedestal, being an artist isn’t easy,” Reposar said. Hofmeister believes his art will manifest itself and spark change with the recent turmoils in the U.S.
He went on to say that he has some different directions that he’s being pulled into, and that he doesn’t know how it’s going to turn out or what he’s going to do, but he knows he wants his messages to be in line with human behavior.
“This has sparked a change that I think is coming into my work, but I haven’t seen it yet,” Hofmeister said. “I feel a way that I haven’t felt about things before.”
