Photography by Amani Sodiq
From drawing Superman logos as a child to painting murals that captivate the Dallas community, Armando Aguirre’s journey as an artist has been fueled by perseverance and inspiration from his family.
One of the recent projects Aguirre was a part of was a mural dedicated to NBA star Luka Dončić, who was traded to the Los Angeles Lakers in February, a move that devastated Dallas Mavericks fans.
The mural is located in Trinity Groves at 343 Singleton Blvd. and has drawn plenty of attention as loyal Luka fans take photos of and with the mural, which depicts Dončić from two angles with the words “Luka Magic.”
Aguirre was born in Michigan and moved to Oak Cliff in the second grade, where he later attended South Oak Cliff High School. He says he’s always been drawing since elementary school.
“It started with that simple Superman ‘S,’ and then from there I started doing graffiti letters,” Aguirre says. “That’s how I got started.”
His creative side came in part from his mother, who would knit and embroider on fabric used to keep tortillas warm.
“She would do birds, flowers, the embroidery on the edges and everything. And then she would draw, so she was the first one that started doing stuff like that,” Aguirre says. “Her and my cousin were the first creative people I looked up to in my life.”
From there, Aguirre saw graffiti and decided to pick up spray paint in middle school. He went on to attend the University of Texas at Dallas where he got a bachelor’s degree in visual arts.
“I knew I wanted to do something with art, but I didn’t know what that would look like,” Aguirre says. “Growing up, the only two options I ever thought of for art was you’re an art teacher, or you could do tattoos.”
After graduating, he worked with a nonprofit to help get people registered to vote. Then, the pandemic hit, and he picked up his paintbrush to do live paintings at pop-up events.
“I wouldn’t even go to sell. I would just live paint because I wanted people to see that I’m an artist,” Aguirre says. “I had sold a few paintings like that, and that got me excited. I was like, ‘Well, maybe there’s something that I can actually do.’ And then COVID hit and the whole social distance thing. That’s when I was like, ‘Well, let me try to do murals,’ because I had always wanted to.”
The idea of painting large-scale where many people would see his work was appealing to Aguirre. He started with murals on a shipping container and on the side of a corner store. One of his first large-scale projects was a mural off of Beckley and Clarendon relating to the Black Lives Matter movement.
“I just felt frustrated. I wanted to paint something,” Aguirre says. “I got the owner to give me, like, $150 for some of the paint, and then the rest I put on myself. That was the first one that I did that made me feel like, ‘Wow, I can actually execute this and do this.”
From there, he was able to book more projects and realized he could make money off of his work. He painted for a taco shop on Singleton and a property owned by Proxy Properties.
“Little by little, if it would take me a month to try to get one other job, or longer, then I just kept sticking with it,” he says. “I got a studio, and I was just kind of faking it till I made it.”
He says what helped the most during this part of his journey was surrounding himself with other artists who convinced him that he belonged in the space. The COVID era was also beneficial in some ways.
“I think COVID helped a lot with not being afraid, because everyone was losing jobs, and what was the point of trying to secure something like that if everything kind of stopped? We all had to move a little different,” Aguirre says. “A lot of businesses were wanting to display positive messages and doing murals, and I think murals got really popular during that time.”
Aguirre has worked with the City of Dallas on several projects. One of his favorite projects was a 7-Eleven in San Diego.
“I was just happy and blessed that I was able to travel and do that,” he says. “I mean, they paid me and brought me out there. I think that was the first time I was just extremely proud.”
Aguirre is going on five years of doing murals full-time. His goals for the future include being able to paint and travel and continue to grow his portfolio.
“It feels cool, because murals just feel like a way to have kind of pushed myself into the scene without ever knowing who I was to begin with,” Aguirre says. “So I kind of feel like I went around it in a different way, and I still established some type of name or recognition for my work.”
Aguirre says he remembers driving around Oak Cliff and looking at the murals, dreaming of being able to create art like that for his city.
“I would daydream about this all the time, like I’d be in the back of the car, and I’d be looking at the walls,” Aguirre says. “So to do that now, to drive around Dallas and to see my work, I feel really proud.”
