BROOKLYN STREET ART LOVES YOU MORE EVERY DAYFor his current show at Bryce Wolkowitz Gallery in Chelsea, José Parlá’s new paintings make you feel as if you were standing on a cold windy elevated Brooklyn subway platform waiting for a hulking rusted behemoth to scrape and scream around the curvature of the tracks toward you.
José Parlá (photo © Jaime Rojo)
Concentrate solely on the canvases in front of you and you might even hear the heroes of the railyards approaching. Like Ginsberg with no rhyme but a lot of reason Mr. Parlá’s poetic abstractions gently draw the viewer in for a close inspection.
“The whole blear world of smoke and twisted steel around my head in a railroad car, and my mind wandering past the rust into futurity: I saw the sun go down in a carnal and primeval world, leaving darkness to cover my railroad train because the other side of the world was waiting for dawn.”
— Allen Ginsberg
José Parlá (photo © Jaime Rojo)
Using a color palette of red, ochre, black and gray he mashes the colors with bold textures and exquisite, sinuous lines. Eroded, tattered surfaces and found objects are canvas to markers, aerosol, even charcoal. The gestural markings and strokes recall a hip-hop romance now abstract and calligraphic: some layers evoking a dark Mexican Baroque wooden altar, carved and gold leafed.
José Parlá. Detail (photo © Jaime Rojo)
Mr. Parlá trained in the 1980s on the streets as a graffiti artist – and all of these elements exist elsewhere in the urban jungle, but Parlá has developed his own language to tell his story with these tools. Born in rebellion, the energy of his movement across the canvas is just as badass as any tunnel writer but with a timbre and depth that age and self-study can render.
José Parlá (photo © Jaime Rojo)
José Parlá. Detail (photo © Jaime Rojo)
José Parlá (photo © Jaime Rojo)
José Parlá (photo © Jaime Rojo)
José Parlá (photo © Jaime Rojo)
José Parlá (photo © Jaime Rojo)
José Parlá. Detail (photo © Jaime Rojo)
José Parlá. Close up of the painted hall wall. (photo © Jaime Rojo)
José Parlá (photo © Jaime Rojo)
At the show opening last Thursday an ad hoc duo of drummers set up shop outside the gallery and an air of raucous carnival and merriment permeated the night. A demanding New Yorker stopped to inquire just how long they would continue. The musicians gently answered her questions and banged away. Walking away from the spot their beats disappeared into the cold night.
Photo © Jaime Rojo
“Wall Diaries and Paintings”, José Parlá
Bryce Wolkowitz Gallery from March 3rd to April 16th
238
138
45
Other Articles You May Like from BSA:
In a space massive enough for a Dutch sea vessel, the Street Art Museum of Amsterdam (STRAAT) has one of the largest collections of today’s mural stars anywhere. During its official maiden voyage, cu...
One thing that some Street Artists do when their work enters the white cube is drop the “street” from their official moniker, instead preferring to be known simply as an “artist”. The decision is poss...
Peeling Back Layers of Paint Offers Inspiration of a Different Kind Typically one needs to go down underground, over a fence, through a broken window, or behind rusty chained metal doors to be an urb...
Welcome to BSA Images of the Week! Did you catch the celebrities singing in Central Park last night before the rains of Hurricane Henri reached New York? Talk about electricity in the air! New...
This week BSA is in Moscow with you and Urban Nation for Artmossphere 2016, the 2nd Street Art Biennale, a group exposition introducing 26 Russian and 42 foreign artists who were shaped by street ar...
