Jordan Nickel, better known as POSE, is a Chicago-born graffiti artist whose work fuses street culture, pop art, and comic book aesthetics into a bold, layered style. With a bright palette and complex collage style, he often hides messages and abstract forms that reward a closer look. A standout example is his 85-foot mural he painted last summer beneath the Purple Line in Evanston, Illinois—a city just north of Chicago—a pop kaleidoscope of memories and associations with his youth there.

This week, POSE brought that energy to a new kind of canvas: a full-sized, hand-painted carousel installed in the garden at Ian Schrager’s Public Hotel in New York City. Produced by longtime collaborator and street art curator Roger Gastman, the project was painted over two intensive weeks in a Connecticut studio. POSE applied multiple layers—sometimes two or three coats deep—to achieve his envisioned spirit and aesthetic. Reflecting on the project, he expressed honor in contributing to Schrager’s legacy of collaborating with street artists, which includes past projects with notables like Jean-Michel Basquiat and Keith Haring during the era of the Palladium nightclub in the 1980s.

A short walk from this new installation, back in June 2013, POSE teamed up with fellow MSK crew member Revok to transform the iconic Houston/Bowery Wall in New York City—a site previously adorned by many street artists and graffiti writers, including Haring, Os Gemeos, and Shepard Fairey. Their collaborative piece was a riot of color, texture, and tribute, blending graffiti, pop art, and street culture into a cohesive whole.

For more on POSE’s work, visit his Instagram profile or his official website.

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