Born in Italy, Jorit started spray painting at the age of thirteen. In the beginning this activity was an expression to mark the places he attended with his friends. When he started to see the marks and signs of other groups and crews, he began to understand that an entire world existed behind those signs, marks and graffiti on the city walls. To him, writing on the city walls was a way to escape from a world which was oppressive and not stimulating.
Known for his hyper-realistic mural portraits, Jorit’s aim is to portray his art as close as possible to reality. To him, the face is the most telling part about human beings, because he feels it’s the most direct indication of someone’s emotion. This interest in the varied incarnations of the human countenance has prompted him to craft candid portraits all the way from the rural stretches of Cuba to New York City.
Jorit has started to mark his portraits with two red lines or scars on the cheek that refer to ancient African rituals, like scarification. This ritual indicates the passing from childhood to adult age. Jorit is firmly convinced that the differences of race, gender, religion and social class do not mean anything with respect to the characteristics that are similar in all human beings, and give us our shared humanity.
