Guerilla Garden muralist reclaims Denver’s public spaces through art

Denver native Jolt is at the center of Colorado’s urban art scene

By Emily Baker

As many natives and longtime residents of Denver have seen, the city has rapidly changed and grown over the last few decades. The resulting gentrification has slowly erased the history and culture of some of the city’s oldest neighborhoods. A Denver native who goes by Jolt aims to change that, however, through his art.

Guerilla Garden, founded in 2004 by Jolt, is Denver’s oldest mural company. 

“I’m from the streets, I learned my art on the streets,” Jolt says of his work. Guerilla Garden was not the first to attempt to amplify the voices of Denver’s underrepresented communities. Jolt, whose given name was Jeremy Silas Ulibarri, takes much of his inspiration from the Chicano mural movement. 

Beginning in the 1960s, the movement saw many artists from Colorado and other southwestern states travel to Mexico and study under the Mexican muralist David Alfaro Siqueiros. They brought the skills they learned back to the United States and used them to beautify and reclaim public spaces through art designed to uplift Chicano culture and history.

Today, Jolt aims to do the same. Growing up in the '90s and attending North High School, Jolt recalls, “gang culture was a thing. There were shootings, there were murders and I didn’t fit into the gang culture.” It was also a time when the term graffiti had a negative connotation. 

So, Jolt found his place at The Spot, today called Urban Peak. Founded by former NFL player Dave Stalls, The Spot provided a space for creativity in Denver’s youth through art, dancing and music. They could paint and graffiti on walls, breakdance, and make use of recording studios for aspiring musicians while having access to a diploma, job training, and other essential resources.

“We all still talk about it today. It was extremely beneficial to our lives,” he says of the organization. Not long after graduating from the Spot, at 19, Jolt met a Brooklyan-based art agent who opened the door for him to make a living off of his passion. “I’ve never had a ‘real job’ since,” he says.

Today, Jolt’s murals can be seen all across the United States. “I tend to stay away from areas that have been overly gentrified, and the art doesn’t connect to the ethos of that environment. I work in a lot of different styles, so you have to know what you’re looking at to know it’s my work.”

One particular mural important to Jolt is of butterflies in flight and is located in the Swansea community. A vote was taken to choose this mural and Jolt was competing against many artists who were not from Colorado, let alone the Swansea area. 

“It gave me the chance to talk to people about why the art should be painted by people of the community,” he says of the project he eventually won. “I am invested in that community. I bought land and sold it to the city to build parks. I held the space to further build the community.” 

Another of Jolt’s murals, a wall of pink flowers located at 345 Santa Fe he describes as comparable to a painting of a bowl of fruit. However simple, it opens the door for more of his art that makes a statement. “If you can paint something like a bowl of fruit, it allows you to have the conversation with people who otherwise wouldn't understand street art as an art form,” he says. “I can do this very traditional thing. It checks that box.”

Two more of Jolt’s murals were done for the Colorado Crush Spray Can art event. Both years Jolt participated, his mural was meant to highlight the gentrification of the River North neighborhood, nicknamed RiNo. In one, he painted developers riding a giant rhino rampaging toward a small house being defended by an elderly Latina woman. In another, he painted a vulture, a wolf, and a rhino sitting around a table with the words “A rhino, a vulture, and a wolf walk into a community…”

Today, graffiti art is its own recognized form. While Jolt recalls ending up in court for his art in his youth, now he has his own spray can color called Jolt’s Mile High Green. You can find his work all around the Denver metro area if you know where to look. If you don’t know where to look, you can also keep up with Jolt’s latest murals on Instagram.