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JORIT
AGOCH

Jorit,his birth name, Agoch his art-name, was born in Italy-Naples, from an Italian father and a Dutch mother.

He started to paint at the age of thirteen with a spraycan in his native city Quarto, north of Naples. 

In the beginning this activity was an expression to mark the places he attended with his friends. 

 The discovery of the graffiti-world and his components, adult and adolescents, made Jorit aware he could be part of something very big, of something which started in many other cities, in every part of the world by other people different but also similar to him.

 In this period, conscious of reality, Jorit started to paint with more dedication and sacrifice; he marked his graffiti on walls and trains with his nickname, all around his native city and Naples, and very soon in the whole of Italy. 

 This first period, in his adolescence age, energetic and sometimes violent, focuses him on creative art, like painting and drawing. After scientific school, he decided to go to the Art Academy of Naples. Here he learned how to use acrylic and oil on canvas and he started to carry out paintings on canvas as well as continuing to paint around cities.

His graffiti-style slowly has been changing and maturing: he pays more attention to the human face and he becomes more meticulous and realistic. 

His paintings gave him the possibility to travel and discover the rest of the world and escape from the Neapolitan lifestyle. He visited many European cities and made graffiti everywhere.

 In 2005 he went to sub-Saharan Africa for the first time and the African culture impressed him a lot. He returned to the continent for another 7 times during several months. In Tanzania he studied and collaborated with the International School of Painting Tinga Tinga at Dar es Salaam. The extremely creative and technical artistic talent of these African painters stimulated him to refine his technique and increase the eye for enhanced meticulous details. 

In June 2010 he exhibited 25 paintings inspired by his African experience for charity. All paintings were sold and all proceeds were used to build a maternity ward in a small village near Dar es Salaam, visited by Jorit before and after the construction. The event was mentioned on public Italian television, RAI. It is easy to understand that Jorit is fascinated by non-occidental cultures and he has a strong sense of respect and brotherhood for all different cultures. 

Jorit is now focused exclusively on the human face and in particular to portray the human face in the most realistic mode possible.

 He has started to mark his portraits with two red lines or scars on the cheek that refer to ancient African rituals,like scarification. 

This ritual indicates the passing from childhood to adult age. He is firmly convinced that all the differences of race, gender, religion and social class do not mean anything with respect to the characteristics that are similar in all human beings, especially ‘being a human being’. 

He continues to paint all around the world on city walls and marks his graffiti-portraits with the two red signs making them, in this way, part of his tribe ‘Human Tribe’. His awareness of the social, cultural and ethnic variety all over the world is still growing as he continues travelling in Africa, Cuba, Australia and some Arabic countries and studying during these stays.

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