By Trevor H. Smith | The Coast Press
Los Angeles is a place where movements start without asking permission. Music scenes rise from garages. Art flows from alleys, beaches, and freeways. Communities form around shared experiences long before anyone calls them collectives. The California Locos belong to this lineage. They are a group of artists who did not set out to build a brand or a scene. They simply recognized something familiar in each other. The spark that brought them together grew into one of the most meaningful, multi-generational art movements in the state.
At the center of that story sits Dave Tourjé, a painter, filmmaker, musician, and accidental cultural historian who helped turn an informal meeting of minds into a lasting artistic family.
Dave Tourjé and the Chouinard Legacy
The story begins decades before the Locos formed. In 1999, Tourjé bought a neglected Craftsman house in South Pasadena. He later discovered that the home had belonged to Nelbert Chouinard, founder of the Chouinard Art Institute. That school was the original West Coast creative incubator. It produced animators, painters, designers, and musicians who shaped everything from Disney to modern art movements in Los Angeles.
Tourjé restored the home, then formed the Chouinard Foundation to revive the school’s spirit. Through that effort, he met a few Chouinard-connected artists:
Chaz Bojórquez, John Van Hamersveld, Norton Wisdom, Gary Wong
They shared stories about LA’s cultural underground. They recognized that, by coincidence or fate, they had been working in parallel for years. Tourjé didn’t know it yet, but he was gathering the founding members of a new collective.
The 2011 Beverly Hills Panel That Started Everything
In 2011, a Beverly Hills gallery hosted a Tourjé solo exhibition. When asked to do an artist talk, he suggested something different. He asked Chaz, Van Hamersveld, Wisdom, and Wong to join him for a panel. That moment changed everything.
The conversation lit up the room. Five artists from different disciplines began finishing each other’s sentences. They talked about surf breaks, graffiti walls, punk clubs, Chouinard’s collapse, hot rods, album covers, and how Los Angeles erases the line between fine art and street culture.
That panel, meant to be a one-time conversation, became the origin of what we now know as the California Locos.
The Original Five: A Detailed Portrait
1. Dave Tourjé
Tourjé’s art reflects the city that raised him. Growing up in Northeast LA during its rougher years gave him a street-level perspective. His reverse paintings on glass and acrylic are bold, layered, sharp, urban, and architectural. He creates glossy surfaces that feel like LA sun hitting chrome and concrete.
Tourjé is also a filmmaker and musician. His award-winning short films capture the same restless energy as his paintings. For two decades, he recorded the Locos’ exhibitions, travels, studio sessions, and conversations. That archive is now being edited into a feature-length documentary for release in 2026.
Tourjé didn’t “lead” the Locos. He simply kept the group connected and preserved their story.
2. Chaz Bojórquez
Chaz is one of the first globally recognized graffiti artists and is respected as the godfather of West Coast graffiti lettering. He grew up in Highland Park surrounded by gang writing. He studied calligraphy around the world and elevated LA street lettering into fine art. His signature piece, “Señor Suerte,” became an international icon.
Chaz carries his title humbly. He sees himself not as the inventor of a style but as a conduit who helped preserve and legitimize a cultural language that already existed.
3. John Van Hamersveld
Van Hamersveld’s work is legendary. His Endless Summer poster is one of the most famous images in surf history. He designed album covers for the Beatles, Rolling Stones, Jefferson Airplane, Grateful Dead, and hundreds more. His psychedelic color palettes and precision lines influenced generations of graphic designers.
His presence in the Locos connects the group to surf culture, rock-and-roll history, and California’s graphic identity.
4. Norton Wisdom
Wisdom is a painter with a conscience. He came up during the Vietnam era and became known for live, improvised painting performances. He paints to music. He paints to protest. He paints to the rhythm of cultural change. His images appear, shift, and disappear during performances.
His art is political, spiritual, and emotional. Wisdom gives the Locos an introspective center.
5. Gary Wong
Wong is a Chouinard alumnus whose paintings combine modernist discipline with West Coast identity. He is also a blues musician known as Charlie Chan, and his dual artistic life mirrors the multidisciplinary nature of the Locos.
Wong connects the group to the intellectual and fine-art traditions that ran through early Los Angeles art institutions.
Locos Only: The Extended Collective
Over time, the California Locos expanded into a larger community called Locos Only. These collaborators reflect LA’s broader cultural language: graffiti, lowrider photography, punk music, illustration, pop surrealism, tattooing, and surf history.
Below is a full expansion of each member.
Mister Cartoon
Mark “Mister Cartoon” Machado started as a graffiti writer and became one of the world’s most sought-after tattoo artists. His fine-line black and grey tattoo style is based on Chicano muralism, prison art, and LA street lettering. Cartoon has tattooed Eminem, 50 Cent, Travis Barker, and countless others.
He creates murals, car designs, album covers, and clothing. His collaboration with the Locos blends lowrider culture, graffiti, and high craft.
Shepard Fairey
Fairey began as a skateboarder making stickers for fun. His “Andre the Giant Has a Posse” sticker evolved into the OBEY Giant campaign. His work blends propaganda graphics, activism, and street art.
His Obama “Hope” poster became a historic political image.
With the Locos, Fairey connects skate culture to political art and fine design. His presence shows that the Locos’ reach extends far beyond traditional surf and graffiti circles.
Estevan Oriol
Oriol is one of the most respected photographers of Los Angeles street life. He began working security at hip-hop clubs and became a tour manager for Cypress Hill and House of Pain. He documented everything with a camera.
His photos define Chicano culture, lowriders, gang history, and Hollywood street identity. His documentary LA Originals cemented his status as a cultural storyteller. His work with the Locos brings raw authenticity to the movement.
RETNA
RETNA created a distinct visual alphabet drawn from calligraphy, graffiti, hieroglyphics, Hebrew script, and street culture. His murals appear worldwide. His lettering style reshaped the direction of contemporary graffiti.
RETNA’s presence positions the Locos as an intergenerational lineage of LA calligraphy.
Slick (OG Slick)
OG Slick came up in the 1980s graffiti scene and became known for his sharp characters and the iconic “LA Hands” design. Slick works in murals, toy design, fashion, and installation art.
He represents the modern evolution of graffiti into global brand culture.
Robert Williams
Robert Williams worked with Ed “Big Daddy” Roth and became a founding father of Lowbrow and Pop Surrealism. He created outrageous, humorous, technically brilliant paintings that rewrote underground culture.
He also founded Juxtapoz Magazine, the most influential alternative art publication of the last 30 years.
With the Locos, Williams connects surf-skate culture to fine art.
Museum Exhibitions and Cultural Recognition
Today, the California Locos are exhibited in the California Surf Museum, with each member contributing a piece that reflects their shared identity. Their art sits alongside the history of surf culture, showing how their influence extends far beyond urban spaces.
They have also partnered with the Oceanside Museum of Art, and have hundreds of pages of archival material published by Drago in Rome.
Their presence in museums proves something important: California culture is not divided into “high art” and “street art.” With the Locos, those categories merge naturally, the way they always have on the West Coast.
The Brand Relaunch with the Paskowitz Family
The Locos are working with Abraham and Joshua Paskowitz of the legendary Paskowitz surf family. Their goal is to relaunch the California Locos brand with:
High-quality merchandise
Accessible pricing
Authentic storytelling
Surf and skate alignment
Cross-generational design
This relaunch aims to honor their pre-pandemic skateboard and merch success while expanding their reach.
The Documentary and the Living Archive
Tourjé is now editing a 90-minute documentary using decades of footage he captured throughout the Locos’ evolution. His own band will create the film’s soundtrack.
The film will show the group not as an organized brand, but as a living organism shaped by decades of friendship, rebellion, and cultural overlap.
The California Locos Today
The California Locos began as five artists who found common ground in a Beverly Hills gallery. Today they represent an entire spectrum of California culture. They are painters, filmmakers, graffiti writers, designers, tattoo artists, photographers, activists, musicians, and storytellers.
They are a movement across generations.
They are the living language of Southern California.
They are the past, present, and future of the West Coast.
For anyone who wants to understand California beyond Hollywood, beyond the postcards, and beyond the clichés, the California Locos are one of the most authentic cultural expressions of the region.
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