Conversation with Activist and Artist Jesse Hazelip

In this episode, I interview Jesse Hazelip. Hazelip was born in 1977 in Cortez, Colorado amidst Navajo and Ute Nation territory, where at a young age, he became acutely aware of the racism and classism of our nation. At the age of 13, he relocated to Santa Barbara, CA. Shifting into this vastly different environment from his childhood, Hazelip became involved with graffiti, which has become the groundwork for his aesthetic and technique. His love for vandalism is rooted in the traditional sense of the act; where activism becomes ground level, unleashed for the masses to ingest alongside the ever present corporate billboards and consumer propaganda. Hazelip is currently using the Gallery environment as his main venue for showing his work, but his message does not falter, he simply has the chance to reach another level of audience. Political activism continues to be a huge thread within his works and he is currently addressing the prison system and incarceration. Hazelip is currently based in New York and recently held an exhibition at the Jonathan Levine Gallery entitled, Love Lock: Cycle Of Violence, which addressed the inhumane prison conditions in America. His work with the issue of incarceration seems far from over, and I can only assume there are many more inspiring projects that Hazelip has yet to provide to us as inspiration on how to stay human.