Breakin' Hearts

by Marcella Ortega

Daily Lobo

Music is a key element in the work of graffiti artist Luke Aiello.

"You get letters, and you just flow with them like waves," he said. "That's how my basic flow is, like water. It's cool just to get loose. That's what I tell everyone else who is interested. I tell them, 'Just practice and flow with it. Let it take you.'"

Aiello will compete in the Canvas Art Battle in the Breakin' Hearts hip-hop festival Saturday at the Heights Community Center at 823 Buena Vista Drive S.E. Contestants can enter any number of canvas paintings for a cash prize. They can also display and sell their work.

Aiello grew up in Santa Fe. He started painting graffiti when he was 13, after he discovered the hip-hop scene in the city.

"My friend Eric Gallegos was always into art, and he had this graffiti book that I have in my room," he said. "It's called Graffito, and he brought that to school. I was all into it, and my mom went and bought it for me. Ever since that, I pretty much took it up."

Aiello started taking pictures of graffiti in Santa Fe before he started painting. Later, he started looking for it around Albuquerque.

"I started venturing up here, and I would go into tunnels, and I'd see (the work of) my homies that I crew with now, like five years later, and I was getting pictures of their stuff from when they were young before I knew them," he said. "It was inspiring just seeing the work. That's what's cool about graffiti."

Fellow graffiti artist DJay BishBan grew up with Aiello in Santa Fe.

"I can see a lot of music in his (Aiello's) artwork - the notes," BishBan said. "I can visualize him flowing to a phat beat. That's how I get down. You feel the music, and it controls your hand."

BishBan said Aiello gets flamboyant when painting.

"He gets all into it," BishBan said. "You'll see him dancing. He'll look away, keep painting, and he'll be dead on point. It's pretty raw."

Aiello will enter two canvases in the battle. Though he is not sure which pieces he will enter, he said he wants to replicate his painting "Life," which consists of an acrylic heart tearing into pieces with a blood red metallic spray-painted background. He wanted to enter it in last year's festival because renowned graffiti artist Mike Giant was going to judge the competition.

"I didn't finish it until a few days before last year's event, and Mike Giant was supposed to judge it, but something happened, and he decided to go out on vacation," he said. "I was all hurt because I was pumped. I was like, 'He's going to love this heart.' And then he didn't even show up."

Aiello said he will display paintings at the festival that will not be in the competition, including small canvases coated in clear, glossy polyurethane resin. He said the polyurethane resin brings out colors in the metallic backgrounds that give his paintings a chameleon effect when viewed from different angles.

"Polyurethane resin has its downfalls," he said. "It will take away from a painting sometimes as much as it will give to it, if you don't do it right. Now that it's cold, it takes like 48 hours to cure, and it can attract dust, so you have to be careful with it."

Aiello said the possibilities for what he will experiment with in the future are endless, but he will continue to draw inspiration from his crew and music.

"Every time I go to see a performer, I show them love - especially people that I listen to," he said. "I tell them they keep me up at night. 'You keep me painting. You keep me going.'"

Breakin' Hearts

Saturday

6-11 p.m.

Heights Community Center

823 Buena Vista Drive S.E.

$10 presale tickets available at

L.A. Underground at 2000 Central Ave.

$15 at the door