José Parlá

In monumental, gestural paintings Parlá connects autobiography with grand subcultural histories. With roots in Subway art, his signature, stylized writing is painted and scribed into the surface of artworks which, through dense layering, are rendered partially abstract - establishing both symbolic and literal modes of legibility. Created with a wealth of materials, techniques and pigments, the paintings evoke post-war Abstract Expressionism as easily as the textures of urban space like painted trains and peeling billboards. Parlá’s experimental process is embedded in dance. The artist explains that, growing up in 1980s Miami music (and hip-hop in particular) was a unifying community force. Feeding from traditional Cuban melodies, salsa and reggae, he leaps, jumps and climbs across his works, leaving the imprint of his body on the surface. This poetic athleticism, for Parlá, symbolises the power of art and culture at large.

All of Parlá’s work is politically engaged and he has created large-scale public murals across the globe. Driven to enlist new audiences to fine art, he creates large-scale public murals across the globe. Walls are also used symbolically throughout his practice to represent boundaries that are both personal and political, particularly concerning his identity as a person of Cuban heritage born in the United States. Parlá cites the fall of the Iron Curtain as a crucial moment in his own life, as it made many Cuban people question the future of their country in the context of its revolutionary socialist history. As a result, Parlá’s physical mark-making seethes with the weight of lived experience and, like bodily relics of time and place, exposes the sublime capacities of storytelling through texture.

Testing the glossary word etching here.