After a career ending wrestling injury during his junior season, senior Luis Arboleda turned to one of his other passions to release his emotions, grafitti art. Unfortunately, the way he manifested it was by defacing stalls in the school restrooms. After serving his punishment, Luis was approached by principal J.C. De Armas who presented him with the idea of using his talents to create art for the school.
“I thought I was going to be in a lot of trouble, and even though I was punished, the principal saw my talents and he saw the good side of me and he started having me do murals all around the school,” Luis said. His most recent project was creating a graffiti style mural with the word “Bucs” across it near the front gates of the school, perfect for photo opportunities.
Before partnering with the school, Luis did art as a hobby around the area, but it has become a burgeoning business. He previously concealed his identity when creating his art when one day his best friend saw an article written about one of his paintings where he was described as an unknown person. A comment from his friend about it unintentionally gave him his artist name. “We saw the article and he said ‘Oh dang, you’re No Face’ and I just ran with it.”
Since being given this outlet and opportunity, Luis has been booked for jobs nearly every week. With his newfound free time after his sports injury, he has worked on building up his brand and company. “My art is my main focus, all I’m doing is painting for people and doing murals for businesses.”
With the new exposure, Luis ‘No Face’ is now rewarded with seeing people’s reactions to his art. Even though he has built his brand around having No Face, seeing the faces of those around him motivates him. “My true colors are out there, one of the main reasons I do art is to see people happy. I love watching people enjoy my art, seeing the crowd behind me smile and laugh while I’m creating helps me realize that I’m not only doing this for me, but for other people.”