Art scavengers to sift Hillcrest

Artist Louiegee “Strider” Faustino hides his work for you to find. In a scavenger hunt he calls “The Lost Cause,” he has a populist vision of an art that is for everyone, can be seen by anyone, and is available to the urban pedestrian.

Over the past six months, he has donated eight paintings and gained more followers as he strives to make it as a San Diego artist. In one Facebook post, he tipped off followers with a photograph of several newsstands along University Avenue in which he had tucked a small canvas. His next artistic hide-and-seek will be this Sunday, May 18.

“I make a painting, I drop hints on my Facebook page,” said Faustino. “People are really eager to get them. They find them in a few minutes.”

Like Dalek, a graffiti artist who has inspired him, Strider grew up in a military family that moved throughout the U.S. Having now spent half his life in Southern California, the graffiti, comic-book characterization, and graphic-novel abstraction of the city walls now animate his acrylic paintings.

“I’m not formally educated in art. I’m self-taught,” said Strider. “But art is what I’ve done for 15 years. It’s what I do.”

Moving from solo shows at a downtown Artwalk in Little Italy to hangings in Bourbon Street (the Park Boulevard bar) and Whole Foods, Strider has sporadically produced work since he was 20.

“I work for a living and do art in my free time. Sometimes, I work all day [at a grocery store] and when I get home — where my roommate and I share an art workspace — it’s quiet, no one is a awake, and I finally have time to paint."