Kendall "Kech" Valverde
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Costa Rican artist Kendall “Kech” Valverde began experimenting with aerosol painting technique at the age of twelve–his first works on the walls in his mother's house, the walls of the school he attended, and throughout San Jose’s city neighborhoods where he grew up. Kech remembers being drawn to the bubble letters his mother used on his school notebooks to label each subject, and he would sneak spray paint from his father’s workshop to practice this ‘bombing’ style on the walls. Since these early explorations of ‘tagging’ and ‘bombing’ Kech has been compelled to continually try new techniques and investigate different styles, and although he has not pursued any formal art training, his work has naturally evolved from tags and graffiti lettering into images and expressive murals. While Kech specializes in large-scale works, as he has expanded into painting on canvases and creating custom hats, he’s developed techniques with airbrush, acrylic, and pen to achieve the smallest of details.
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Culture and community play an important role in Graffiti Art, and Kech has enjoyed traveling, meeting up with this community, and receiving recognition internationally for his work participating in several graffitti festivals throughout Central America. He’s been an invited artist at the Area 503 Festival in El Salvador in 2012 & 2015; the Hip Hop Revolution Festival in Guatemala in 2012; the Arte de Las Calles Festival in Honduras in 2014; and the Panama Hip Hop Festival in 2024, among others. Outside of the Hip Hop community, Kech has been invited to share his art as live performance at several music festivals including Envision, Bamboo Base, and Nahual in Costa Rica, and Magma Fest in Nicaragua. Beyond the creative container in these festival spaces, Kech's passion for the graffiti art style has been further fueled in connecting with other graffiti artists, both those visiting Costa Rica, as well as those he's met in travels to the San Francisco Bay Area and Los Angeles, and Kech aspires to explore more of the world, learning about new places through this common lens and witnessing the positive impact of graffiti culture.
Pursuing this path in Graffiti Art has opened many doors for Kech and given him invaluable experiences, and he has always felt compelled to share this within his community. He has coordinated Hip Hop Festivals and activities for underserved youth in both his hometown neighborhood in San Jose and where he currently resides in Playas del Coco, and he has played a main role sharing this art in both installments of Coco's 'Encuentro Cultural' aimed at uplifting local youth. Kech has been contracted to paint murals at some of Coco's favorite spots like Tandoor Indian Restaurant, Coconutz Brewhouse, Blue Dream Divers, and Summer-Salt Dive Center, and he played an important role in the Colors Across Costa Rica fundraising project for pandemic relief volunteering to paint eight of the sponsored electricity posts, bringing pops of colorful Costa Rican wildlife to Coco's downtown. While Kech is excited for his first exhibition in July 2024 where he will show more than twenty new large-scale works on canvas, and he's looking forward the new possibilities that come with a dedicated art space, painting for himself and for the community in the public space continues to drive his passion.
Pursuing this path in Graffiti Art has opened many doors for Kech and given him invaluable experiences, and he has always felt compelled to share this within his community. He has coordinated Hip Hop Festivals and activities for underserved youth in both his hometown neighborhood in San Jose and where he currently resides in Playas del Coco, and he has played a main role sharing this art in both installments of Coco's 'Encuentro Cultural' aimed at uplifting local youth. Kech has been contracted to paint murals at some of Coco's favorite spots like Tandoor Indian Restaurant, Coconutz Brewhouse, Blue Dream Divers, and Summer-Salt Dive Center, and he played an important role in the Colors Across Costa Rica fundraising project for pandemic relief volunteering to paint eight of the sponsored electricity posts, bringing pops of colorful Costa Rican wildlife to Coco's downtown. While Kech is excited for his first exhibition in July 2024 where he will show more than twenty new large-scale works on canvas, and he's looking forward the new possibilities that come with a dedicated art space, painting for himself and for the community in the public space continues to drive his passion.
