This article is the final installment of our four-part series — “Married to the Game” — that takes the reader on a journey, recounting the stories of Bronx graffiti artists as told by a Bronx graffiti artist who grew up in the game.
If you know — you know — Nicer aka Hector Nazario, born in the South Bronx in 1967, knows that there’s no way of getting around the fact that this borough has a way of burrowing into your psyche.
Nicer is like my uncle. Quick-witted, ready with a joke and he’s a good storyteller, which I love because, over the years, I’ve finally figured out there are life lessons burned in that humor. And for this, I am grateful. I wouldn’t be surprised if he was born smiling. As he tells it, he was damn fortunate enough to be born with creativity running through his veins.
He grew up in the 1970s when the Bronx was burning, playing in abandoned buildings, engaging his imagination to transform them into magical worlds and using his surroundings to create trucks and cars of bricks and wood chunks found in abandoned lots in his South Bronx neighborhood.
Maybe that’s the hidden gift that the Bronx leaves for all of us, the ability to construct safe places in our minds if we are smart enough to pick up. Maybe the dismal surroundings and the gang wars are key to opening the door to our unending supply of pure imagination.
Time waits for no one and in the ’80s, as a teenager, Nicer was drawn by the colored written graffiti on the subway trains and walls. He was so immersed in the art form that he became one of the founding members of the Tats Cru, which was his official introduction to the art world.
To date, his work has been exhibited in museums and galleries throughout the U.S. and internationally, including The Smithsonian Museum, The Bronx Museum, BOX Gallery Guangzhou – China, Casa de Cultura – Mexico, Hip Hop Paris 2015 – France, Jardin Orange – China, La Jardin Rouge – and Morocco.
Here’s what Hector…
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