Growing up in South San Jose without a car, Alejandro Aroz spent decades interacting with and memorizing the textures of its innumerable street corners.
When you traverse the Bay Area on foot, you notice everything from a different angle: the weeds sprouting through concrete, discarded blunt guts; the familiar person roaming your block. You gain a deeper understanding, if not appreciation, for it all.
“I’ve been on foot my whole life, looking at my environment, and there’s so much in the Bay Area’s streets to look at,” the 32-year-old says. “I’m always taking notes, observing, bringing that into attention.”
By day, Aroz — who is Mexican American, Native American and Filipino — works as a sheet metal estimator, with a client list that includes tech companies, BART and the Golden State Warriors. But once he clocks out, he transforms into his artistic alter ego: P.LOCZ.
As P.LOCZ, Aroz raps, produces and illustrates. But most impressively — and unlike any other Bay Area rapper — he makes intricate dioramas as a proud “miniaturist.”
“Miniature art is really my lane,” he says. “With Bay Area music, there’s so many people trying to get to the top, you won’t always make it very far. But being in my own lane without anyone else in it, it was like ‘Woah, let me chase this instead of something everyone else is chasing.’”
Ever seen a diorama as a school project or in a museum exhibit? That’s what P.LOCZ does, except that his miniaturism is sprinkled with hella Bay Area game and street-level savvy that showcases the region’s most underappreciated communities, public figures, landmarks and cultural institutions.
There’s the Barrio Lomas tribute he made after being invited to the San Jose Chicano group’s reunion and learning about their history. There’s also the Del Monte water tower, from the San Jose cannery where his grandmother once worked, which was shown at an exhibit honoring cannery workers.
Perhaps his most well-known work to date is a miniaturized depiction of a mural honoring The Jacka on 94th and MacArthur in East Oakland, which he was commissioned to create for The Jacka’s tribute art show in January.
What P.LOCZ does requires patience, intense technical skill and a granular attunement to detail. He visits every site, measures every angle and meticulously calculates the proper scale and sizing. Then, he incorporates the lowriders, graffiti and even sidewalk erosion to bring his dioramas to life.
His miniaturist work began in 2019, right before the pandemic, when he and his now 11-year-old daughter entered a contest for model car building. They placed second, inspiring P.LOCZ to elevate his craft.
When he asked his daughter what they should do next, she suggested the Wienerschnitzel near Roosevelt Park in San Jose that they often visited together. It became their first first-place model of miniature art.
“Now we win first place every time,” he says. “I do it for my daughter.”
1 Culture Gallery discovered him shortly afterward. P.LOCZ credits the community-rooted San Jose gallery and their co-owner, Andrew Espino, for pushing him to reach his maximum output. The gallery began featuring him as a regular artist, and encouraged him to pursue miniaturism more seriously.
Recently, P.LOCZ’s work was exhibited at the California Automobile Museum in Sacramento — where he spent a few years as an adolescent before moving back to San Jose — for their special exhibit The Art of Lowriding. Titled “Boulevard of Dreams,” the portrayal honors San Jose’s Willow Street, the home of Lowrider Magazine, which originated at San Jose State University in 1977 partially as a result of the Chicano Rights Movement. “I wanted to make sure that’s known,” he says. “It’s a big part of our history here.”
One of his most controversially received pieces depicts a Chicano playing handball and being accosted by a San Jose police officer, who has his gun drawn. The piece was inspired by real-life experiences that he’s witnessed of community members being wrongly identified by SJPD officers, he says.
After finishing, he knew he had to incorporate his city. So went to the actual handball court and asked a local resident to tag it.
“My art,” he explains, “is to represent voices that aren’t always heard.”
P.LOCZ’s miniature art can be found at galleries and museums around the Bay Area. For more, see his Instagram.
