Josue Rojas

Josué Rojas (he/him/his) is a Salvadoran-American, San Francisco based painter, muralist, fine artist and educator. A socially committed creative, his work is deeply layered, content-rich, and abstract, blending satirical elements with luscious, narrative-driven paintings. Rojas is a visual storyteller who uses familiar imagery, cartoons, comic book art, graffiti and breaks their traditional settings in dynamic and often humorous ways.

Rojas has over two decades of experience in fine arts, muralism, community arts, and arts leadership in the San Francisco Bay Area and beyond. He holds a BFA in Painting/Drawing from California College of Arts & Crafts and an MFA in Painting/Drawing from Boston University. Before going independent as a full-time artist, Rojas worked as a bi-lingual journalist for 15 years with Pacific News Service/New America Media and then went on to be executive director of Acción Latina, proud publisher of El Tecolote Newspaper (est. 1970), California’s longest-running bilingual newspaper. As such, an intimate and nuanced understanding of community centers his approach. His work and vision have been characterized by a commitment to upholding cherished values of community arts, civic engagement, social justice, and empowerment for migrant communities at large.

Rojas’s work has been exhibited at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art’s Koret Education Center, Incline Gallery, Arion Press, Acción Latina’s Juan R. Fuentes Gallery and was featured in Juxtapoz, Hyperallergic, the San Francisco Chronicle, El Tecolote Bi-lingual Newspaper, and Mission Local. Rojas will be creating a mural commission at the New Potrero Muni Yard with the San Francisco Arts Commission. His mural work is on public display at Balmy Alley and on the streets of San Francisco.