The idea came from us wanting to collaborate in a way that incorporated the Engine screen and my work. The end result is replaceable 4 x 8 foot plexi glass sheets mounted to a scaffold placed between the Engine and a digital projector. I then paint my designs in white onto the plexi and it shows at a shadow onto the Engine screen, but the white paint on the plexi still captures the colorful, visual collage that is projected. It’s a strange trip to see it develop live in a freestyle form.
The Qualities of Light is a film project curated by my good friend and collaborator Shane Sakanoi of Draftsmen and Rich Hama. I must say, after a number of years giving it up to cameras for interviews an the like, this is by far my most cherished contribution to a doc piece to date. Yes, i did have some say in the style for the film and a bit of direction and im sure that;s helping the sway of my judgement, but the guys went somewhere else with it and I’m happy for that. Music by Teebs & 4×4tracktor.
On an April 2010 trip to Melbourne I had the opportunity to paint a wall in the Northcote District of Victoria. It was a long, wide wall that could manage 5 burners and one character this time around. Special thanks to Dabs & Myla & the SDM Crew for the Invitation and good times.
As many of you know the Manifest Equality Mural “JUSTICE” El Mac, Retna and myself painted was white washed over in the first week of April, 2010. My time lapse was the first official release of the process of the wall. Shig & Med of ‘Viejas del Mercado‘ & Mid City Arts just released their video of the wall, a homage and funeral doc of sorts. Deep and beautiful. They captured a certain tone in this one, as if they new the wall wasn’t going to last much longer….
From February 26 to March 2 we painted day and night using imported spray paint and 3 scissor lifts to create the 20 x 100 foot semi-grayscale mural located in the parking lot of the former Pic-n-Save/Big Lots.
Retna’s type reads ‘JUSTICE’ from left to right. El Mac Painted the portrait of the woman, the sword as well as the scales, all created from his own photo reference. I painted the large circular frame caping each end as well as the halo’s behind each hand.
It was a pleasure working with both artists again and even more so together in a trifecta of sorts for Los Angeles.
Many thanks to Tom, the Sergants, Apple Via, FAIR & Mid-City Arts for the support.
I started at 4th period and finished an hour after school ended.
There was a scheduled paint out on a Saturday but I had to come in on friday to work on my piece. Ended up in the middle of school painting this weird burner. Majority of the kids were real curious and respectful, watching patiently during lunch period and those few minuets between classes. I was all up in the headphones so I wasnt as social this time around.
Imported spray paint, acrylic and house paint on fiberglass & plaster.
Echo park Blvd. North of Sunset Blvd.
Commissioned by Toks
February 2010
My first solo non commercial, public display piece of the New Year. This wall may be familiar to many of you. This was the previous existing piece painted in 2008. This new piece is similar to my previous contribution, but this time I had the opportunity to evacuate a more balanced work. Because it is a horizontally corrugated fiberglass surface, it felt natural to use the texture as a guideline to build up my shapes. There is no hidden message nor word play in this piece, just a structural abstraction exercise in balance, color play and form.
When I first saw the flicker pictures for the newly installed wood panels in the gallery, I knew what I was going to do for the install. That was to basically do what I do to natural wood already, age it down.
Oxidized red, black acrylic washes, house paint, gold and black spray paint, fine tip enamel markers and a bit of brush was all I used to treat the wood. Took about half a day to build my install + spread the mural above the front entrance to meat up with Remy Rough’s section.
I would have had better shots, connections and all, but I was using the only camera I had on deck, a 4 year old Olympus Stylus that isn’t working up to par.
Organized by theL.A. ART MACHINEand curated by Bryson Strauss, VOX HUMANA is a live art performance by legendary Los Angeles street artists Mear One, Kofie, Retna, and El Mac that will take place during the L.A. Art Show, January 20 - 24, 2010.
Using acrylic and aerosol paints, Retna and El Mac will collaborate on a canvas that is 12 x 24 feet, while Kofie and Mear One will work independently on 12 x 12 foot canvases. Los Angeles Art Show attendees are invited to witness the completion of the works on Sunday, January 24, 2010 at 2 PM, and participate in a closing celebration.
While much attention has recently been given to street artists in the fine art world with the rise in celebrity of Shepard Fairey, Banksy, and Gajin Fujita, VOX HUMANA marks the first time that a top-tier art fair has recognized, and celebrated the evolution, power, and artistic integrity of street artists in a such a bold and public manner. The L.A. Art Show is making history.
What originated in the U.S. as the ‘tag’ has evolved into one of the most sophisticated and challenging forms of contemporary art. This event recognizes the talents of these four artists while celebrating the historic journey and enduring nature of graffiti art, from the caves of Lascaux to the spas of Pompeii and from the streets of Los Angeles to the walls of galleries around the world.
For further information/ press please contact:
Bryson Strauss
L.A. Art Machine
Bryson@laartmachine.com
Organized by the L.A. ART MACHINE and curated by Bryson Strauss, VOX HUMANA is a live art performance by legendary Los Angeles street artists Mear One, Kofie, Retna, and El Mac that will take place during the L.A. Art Show, January 20 - 24, 2010.Using large-scale canvases, the artists will begin to work on January 20 and will paint live each day from noon to 6 PM.
33third & Mid City Arts have 3 large walls in the back yard of the gallery/ graffiti supply shop. Every event they host, artists are painting in the back. On this day was the daytime reception for Retna and The Mac’s show. I along with Codak & Kopie painted live for the event along with the guests of honor. Im pretty good with the live art painting thing, but this was a very busy day, add to that the 90º weather made me a bit uncomfortable. The character was an old one I pulled from my files, a suit and a helmet. A lot of the paint I used were scraps & discontinued cans i’ve been trying to unload.
Burk Roberts, Creator of a portable projection screen called ‘The Engine’ invited me to molest a little wall at an old church in Downtown Los Angeles. This former church has hosted many a late night event as well as a number of commercials and reality TV shows. The retaining wall is actually the buildings side stairs as well as a handicap ramp, so the shape wasn’t exactly square as most walls I paint are. I worked the shape of the wall into the left side of the mural.
5 cans of spray paint, 1/4 gallon of black house paint, some white acrylic and all of my recycled grey water helped make this piece what it is.
I was blessed to paint on one of the DUBLAB recording studio walls in the early summer of 2009. I knew that a desk, computer and mixing board were going to be posted in my particular wall, so I worked out a design that I felt was according. Dusted ochras, burnt siennas, oxidized browns and ivory’s were me choice of color here.Dublab is turning 10 this year, and to celebrate here is the list of events for October in Los Angeles.
Painted with Cache and Eye at the end of September on Sunset Blvd., west of Alvarado. Cache is infamous for painting the above chickens across the city. Eyer knocked out his iconic Zapatista characters. I handled all of the backgrounds with recycled house paint, spray-paint and brush.
Private mural for the home of Danny and Gene Lee in Los Angeles, Calif.Danny Leeis a film director responsible for the documentaryRock Fresh, a film I share quite some face time in. Both are old friends of mine and have been interested in me knocking out a mural inside the compound walls. Here I am on blast on Danny Lee’s BLOG
I was invited toManuel Arts High School in South Central, Calif. to add to the Art departments ever growing wall installations. Mr. Ayala has been educating the youth there on street art culture and it’s ever changing and developing mannerisms. His program has been running for a for a short time, but has gotten in good standings with the administration to move forward in embellishing the 2 story building with works by prominent Los Angeles street artists. My mural was sight specific, one of 2 main entrance ways into the north east building. Mr. Ayala felt my structural style would fit nicely into the horizontal crevices of the wall in question. I used 3 styles of brushes and acrylic paints to execute this 4 hour jammy. I may stop in again within the month to add some random colors.
Finally got the opportunity to paint with Ewsoe PDB once again. This was a wall he copped a wear ago right next to the Vista Theatrewhere Sunset, Santa Monica and Hillhurst collide. I worked on pretty much all of the backgrounds, which turned into a sort of Sci-fi blast of greens, whites and blues bolting form a circular point. Ewsoe has been building a series of these house characters with faces incorporating his own take on traditional cartoon character features, very unique and recognizable. It was a super fun wall to paint. Special thanks to Rudy’s Barber Shopfor the use of their king size ladder & Hines Buchanan for the conversation.
I knew at some point I would slowly slide back into taking 35mm photographs, especially after years of playing with my Polaroid Land Camera. A Kodak Pony IIfound its way into my collection at an Estate Sale in Eagle Rock, CA a few months back. Probably paid less then $5 for it along with some ephemeral goods. I have been logging the best of the photos on my Flicker page. Enjoy.
This wall is synonymous for having a new hand painted music based commercial advertisements every few months. I have personally been wanting to paint this wall for as long as I can remember, so this mural is an accomplished personal goal. Located at De La Berracuda on Melrose, east of Fairfax it is in fact part advertisement. Factory 311 commissioned me with a solid recommendation from Sonik Mercury to embellish the recently blank wall. The primary image is my own with an addition of type treatments to advertise the Photographer Lionel Deluy and the exhibition title, ‘Evolution’. A bit fitting for this particular style. PuedeOne helped me knock the whole thing out in about 8 hours + 4 hours of post detail work.
Inspiration for Evolution came from the brain-child of Factory311 director, Nicholas Hardy and the photographer, Lionel Deluy. While working together for sixteen months, there was always the inevitability of curating an exhibition. For Nicholas, evolution explains everything so perfectly: “It’s about growth, fight and life…you can’t construct ideas on your own, you need to seek like-minded people”, he explains.
The Macand I had not gotten the opportunity to collaborate one on one, and this trip helped make that happen on his own home town.The good folks at Parvus Gallery on Rosevelt blesses us with a stucco wall on the side of their space which happened to be in a prime location.
Built in the 50’s, it was once home to a lil flower shop, and the original signage is still holding up. The mural took about 3 days to complete and is definitely ranked in my top 5 of all colabs. The Macs piece is all spray paint as my contribution is both spray paint, acrylic and house paint applied with roller and brush.
My good friend Heather McGrath was in town from Boston for a few short days. While I was working on a lil project in a secret Echo Park location, Heather captured this shot of a freestyle in the rear of the space. A quick legal with 1 can of Sabotaz paint and a lil dirty grey water leftover from the job. Her eye for light and framing is very much on point. Here is more of her beautifully captured moments.
It’s strange to me to call these murals, or even installations for that matter. I was once again asked by the good people of Highland Park’s Green Earth Collectiveto add a lil something to the dispensary once again, but this time on the store front . The building was already appropriately painted a soft dusty mint green, so I played on those color tones, keeping it as low key as possible. The idea was to obviously have something going on out front, but have it appear as if it was there all the time and the sun washed it out in time.
Foggy night. 1am. Deconstruction of an old Financial Center. Unearthed virgin cement walls. No security guards. 1 hour. House paint, acrylic and ink blend. 2 scrap cans. Parking lot illumination. Very quiet evening. Accompanied and guided by a beautiful soul.
A foggy January 2nd.11pm.Solo mission.Frustration release.Still hung over. 2 Tacos de Pastor as a reward for the evenings debauchery. Atlantisis at the bottom of Echo Park Lake.
Axis & I initially painted this wall in the summer of 08 for the DCMA Store. Recently I needed to give the old burner a little retooling here and there. Added some white shots and brought in both spray can as well as brush outlines. The old paint washouts really set this on a dusty path. The wall now looks the way I intended it to look.
Spent a few days in Miami, Florida during the 2008 Art Basel thanks to the Scion Installation exhibition in town. The good folks at Primary Flight blessed me with a space on the ‘Wall Of Fame‘. With a reference of a sketch I did on the plane there, I knocked my piece out in a about 5 hours. I didn’t want to f-up another pair of good shoes, so I did this one barefoot for at least half the time.
This was about the time I was going public with my Triangulation series. There is no real direct inspiration of the pyramid in the work, but you cant avoid it when you crisscross 45 degree angles. For this piece tho, I was definitely thinking of Atlantis & Bimini. Shit, I was at the tip of Florida & I was raised on In Search Of, the Bermuda Triangle was in my brain.
I was commissioned to create an original mural based on the Obama campaign logo. My spin on the logo was somewhat minimal. I just wanted to extend the red flag like stripes a bit and frame the iconic design with the complete opposite of a circle, squares and triangles. The gallery owner was so hyped on the initial design, she requested that I extend the shapes over to the left a bit. Many thanks to Yosi, Lauren & the staff at Lightbox for their help & interest in my work.
One of the perks of living in Los Angeles is there always seems to be interesting freelance work for the film industry. I’ve had my fair share of backdrop/ art department type contributions in the last 10 years. For this gig I used washable Acrylic & Tempura Paint for a temporary mural on a raw cement surface. Filming took place in the basement of the Burbank Galleria. Thanks Geoff.
This was a great wall and location with lots of nooks & crevices. While working on this one I realized i had to keep some of the original raw cement open and prevalent in this piece. I felt like I was getting close to the effect of ‘Aged Organic Retro Future Shock’ style I was hoping for.HERE is the complete Mural.
Quick little acrylic murals for Green Earth Collectivein Highland Park, CA. I keep knocking out bathroom paintings for my friends in recent years. Above is a sample of 2 separate rooms. The wall on the left was the original drywall to the building and had a nice texture. Sucked the paint up really well for the washed style.
2008. Rustoleum with Stocktip on Abandoned Building. The now 80% demolished building used to be a Plastics Mfg. sight specializing in store displays. The wall I painted is one of 3 freestanding brick walls that are still standing until a new security fence for the property is erected. The homeless gentlemen hired by the land owner to watch over the property & I talked for a bit about the space & what it’s future holds. I told him I would come back later that evening and smash the wall, he didn’t mind the company.
2008. House Paint & Spray Paint, weekday afternoon. This wall is a long story in terms of getting to paint it. Aside from the drama, I asked Axis to Paint the skulls in spraypaint, while I came in & ‘murked the soft shapes & Stains over and over with various amounts of grey water.Axis is also part of a newly formed band called The Pain. I should mention taht the wall is actually the side of a new venture from AGENDA calledDCMA collection.
2008. Echo Park, CA. Spraypaint & Water-based Housepaint on metal Roll-up Gate & cement. Hummingbirds byASYL’M SHand I did the rest. Four or so hours on this one. Originally ASYL’M had a Hummingbird on this particular space, so when i was asked by the renter to paint, I had to call him. It’s respect, courtesy and we were looking to paint together soon. The building was built in the 30’s and could quite possibly be an old fire dept.
Untitled Mural/ East LA | Vyal, Retna, Werc & Kofie
House paint & Spray Paint on plaster and metal
2008
East Los Angeles, off of Whittier Blvd.
Vyal & Werc of COI invited me to paint some random characters and a piece in mid January of 2008. I worked on the Rooster & two other characters referenced from my notebook. Retna | AWR came in toward the end of the week & tied it all in with his beautiful letter work.
2007. ‘HOPE’ Acrylic on 5 stretched 3′ x 5′ canvases. Commissioned by Yosi Sargent of Evolutionary Media Groupto hang inBarack Obama’sLos Angeles Campaign Headquarters.LA Weekly had a small wright up about the piece.
Painted in the summer of 2007, this piece is located behind a brownstone apartment complex in Boyle Heights, basically my backyard at the time. The wall was virgin cinderblock with chicken scratch chalk markings and a few mosquito bites from the local youth. As is usually the case, I asked no ones permission to paint this Softblock mural, it just had to be done. A selection of earth red/orange and burnt browns were chosen to play off of the natural brick framing the long narrow yard. The local families enjoyed watching it come about and appreciated the gesture.
2007.House paint & Ink. This is the second abandoned building that photographer Heather McGrath & I explored together. Located in North East LA, the formr Van De Kamp bakery has been abandoned by the city for a number of years. Up until recently construction has been taking place. The space will eventually become a School.
2007. House paint & Acrylic. I have been scoping this wall since i started visiting Oakland towards the end of 07. It’s on the boarder of Berkeley & Oakland and it was constantly tagged on, so there were Graffiti removal blocks in that burnt red tone. I matched the red tone and thinned out the color with grey’s & creams. I actually didn’t know who to speak with the get the wall ‘legitimately’ so i just took it upon myself to rock it. I was about an 1.5 hours into it when the management of the local health food store came across the street to ask me how i could just go and paint it without asking. they liked it, but perplexed by my blatant lack of authority. I proceeded to let them know i was doing a public service by creating a painting that will prevent the continued act of malicious vandalism to their property. They firmly felt that it would still get painted over. It’s been about about 8 months and it hasn’t been touched.
2007. Spray paint & House paint. This spot was around the corner from a local watering hole. Perfect of that post last call relief. I was surprised a lot of the sickest walls were still virgin. The space used to be a Silkscreen & Sign Factory.
2007. Acrylic on Drywall. Private Space. Downtown Los Angeles, CA. Retna AWRon the handstyles which is a 2-Pac quote….“Now of course I want peace on the streets- But realistically painting perfect pictures ain’t never worked- My misery was so deep.”The names in gold read….“DJ Dusk, Verse, Ayer, Kev”... Fallen Soldiers. Much Love toThe Captan Family.You can see a shot taken in progress by Theo Jemison HERE.
2007. House paint & Acrylic on metal. Boyle Heights, CA. This wall is located across from my old BH Studio. I had painted his front windows for Christmas in the past, so I knew I had the green light on his crusty gate door.
2007. Acrylic on drywall. 8 x 18 ft. This mural was intended to be for the Covert Skateboard shop, and it was till new management took over. The space is now a head shop & from what I hear the painting is still there. Vyal, Werc, Codak, Vox & Hex LOD painted the space as well. They did their murals in spray paint with the same color pallet of grays, blacks and reds.
2006.Acrylic & Ink.Sticky Rickthrew a ‘Wheat Paste’party at the old defunct Sunset Pacific Hotel in Holywood, CA. I did do some wheat paste pieces, but my circles were a personal gift to such a sick building. The circle on the stairs is still visible from Sunset heading east.
2006. House paint/Acrylic blend. Sunday. 5 am. Fathers Day. The true beauty of this piece is that the light grey colored blocks were painted by the either the city or a vigilante, Ijust came in and outlined them. Photographer Heather McGrathaccompanied me this morning to shoot the interiors of abandoned structures in downtown. This was the morning stretch & warm up for me.
2006. Spraypaint & housepaint. Unitard Gallery, Downtown Los Angeles. Frowhawk 2-Feathers introduced me to Sven @ at the opening of his gallery Unitard. There was this vacant parking lot on the east side of his gallery space. He gave me permission that night and it was on. This wall wa such a great opportunity to mash out some murals that downtown hasnt had ever, pure murals with no letters. that was my only criteria when i asked NUKE,12ER, Dash Rock &ASYL’M to take the left side of the gallery wall. As far as i’m concerned theycrushed the wall andleft my piece in the dust. The Mural is now imortalized in
2005.Montana spray paint & house paint. This mural is located in the rear of the Lab 101Gallery in Culver City, CA. The wall was supposed to rotate with other artists painting it, but Freddie C let it stand of 4 years. The space is now known as theCerasoli Gallery
2005. This was my last production at the now defunctBelmont Tunnel in Los Angeles, CA. I worked on the angel character and the UTI letters,FEAROpainted the Belmont Letters to perfection. This was also the year that the almighty Under The Influence Crew celebrated it’s 20th Birthday.
2005.Keith Tamashiro of SOAP Designrecommended me when Gravillis Inc. were looking to bring a lil something to their creative space. Located in Mid-City Los Angeles, Gravillis is a commercial print campaign house catering to the entertainment industry. Some of your favorite packaging designs just might of came out of there. the walls were already orange when i began, so prep was nothing. Everyone bugs out on this one still.
2004. House paint on wood panel, weekday afternoon. Some of the best construction wood walls I have ever tapped. This was a 2 day hit. First day was the light green, second was the outline. It rode for a month or so.
2004. Housepaint on wood panel, weekday afternoon. I literally drove over to this spot and rocked it after painting # 27 on La Brea. I could hear the construction workers inside.
2004. House paint on wood panel, weekday afternoon. It was like the construction gods were raining down on North Miracle Mile that month. This one was simple and light. Right when I finished up Steve Grody caught me and snapped the shot that ended up in his bookGraffit LA
Hokkaido is the most northern island of Japan. I was commissioned to paint an interior & exterior piece for the store CORIN in the port city of Kushiro, which was not open just yet. The request for the interior was a little of everything from me including Technology, Waves and a portrait of musician Jackie Mittoo. The outside was for me to do as I wished. I had a great time in Hokkaido and was shown much love by the crew. Fresh crisp air, super green nature & a major port side industrial district smashed with rust, a place where nature meets urban in my favorite way. The Video below was made using my friend Yoshi’s wifes old camcorder from the early 90’s, than edited by my friend Scott Dygert.
2003.House Paint, weekday afternoon. This was completed immediately after #25. It’s the back of the Nursery and looked beautiful, especially this day. The area was so virgin and untouched. I normally wouldn’t paint over old typography signage, but I wanted to leave something fitting. It lasted about 4 months and is now a Trader Joes parking lot.
2004.Housepaint on wood panel, weekday afternoon. Originally I wasn’t trying to outlive this one, but some crab decided to wright inside the colors I laid out. I came back during 4pm traffic to outline and drip-out this one. The space was the old Hyperion Nursery and now is a good ol’ Trader Joes parking lot.
2004. Housepaint & Spraypaint on wood, weekend afternoon. There was an art walk as well as a small show at the Enshalla Gallery in Downtown Los Angles. Across the street was this abandoned Japanese theater once called theLinda Lea. I had been wanting this doorway for as long as I could remember. Lasted a month.
2004. Housepaint on Abandoned Storefront, weekday afternoon. This one was the first time I was partially sweated by anyone for painting one of these. The owner of the property’s sister saw me painting it & called him. He actually came through thinking he was going to have to crunch me up, but after a short talk he let me rock the lil addition to the side. He wasn’t mad, especially after i inquired about the history of the property as well as the sick tiles above, which i took the color plays from.
2003. Housepaint & Acrylic on wood panel, weekday morning. I always was fond of this one. One reason, it was across the street from my old studio. And second, it just flowed nicely on that corner. It lasted for almost 2 months. The contractors even drilled it back up unevenly and crooked and it still rocked. I screwed up & didn’t take a picture of that interaction. The store became an upscale boutique.
2003. Belton spray paint & acrylic. Level Store, Hiroshima. A commission to paint the second floor of this well designed boutique just blocks from Peace Park, the epicenter of the atomic bombing in 1945. This was my second visit to the Level store within 2 years. The requested work this time was the statue of liberty, in gray’s and silvers.
2003. Housepaint on wood panel, early weekday morning. This building suffered a small fire one evening & was located in the heart of an Orthodox Jewish Community. The corporate movie poster crew that pastes these panels beat me to this spot. The morning I went to paint, it was still a touch damp with paste. Most people feel I’m spelling out letters when I did these. and i didn’t intend for this to look like ‘AZ’. They are all freestyles, and I do not have much time to step back for critique & do-overs.
2003. Acrylic, House & Spray Paint, weekend afternoon. This was a permission. The Back parking lot for UNION & Stussy Employees was a bit of a free for all. This was a nice overlap style.
2003. House Paint & Spray Paint, weekday afternoon. This was my first and last piece of this style on Melrose. There was a great patchwork to the panels I was drawn to. Green was a color I always had on deck & felt this was fitting. It lasted a good while and was just about everyones favorite while it was up.
2003. House Paint & Spray Paint, weekday afternoon. This space was theModernica store which carries Modern furniture & lighting. It was still in business, just changing their window. for the week. i kinda had to ask for permission on this one since they were in there. They were all about it. Lasted a week.
2003.House Paint & Acrylic, weekday afternoon. You can tell by now I have a thing for La Brea. True, but La brea was under a constant overhaul with shop renovations and a a few fires. This space was probable the best looking spaces I painted. Went for two this day & made the center of the building the point of perspective for the blocks 3D’s.
2003. House Paint & Spray Paint, weekday afternoon. This Cleaners on 3rd street caught fire and was under renovations for a bit. I didn’t think I was going to get this one, and when i did was quick. laid the green down, then foam brushed the outlines. I didn’t know why I went thin on the outlines, but i did. I deciced to murk the drips to cover the fact it was wack.. Lasted 2 weeks.
This was just west of La Brea & used to be a well known street wear boutique in the 90’s. I was a bit overwhelmed with the size of this one, so I was going to be a bit more minimal to the best of my control, and it was, but only because I was cut short. The lead contractor working on the sight drove up & informed me that they were taking the wall down soon. Truth was it stayed up for 2 more weeks due to delays in construction.
I had to paint out the movie posters for this one. Usually like the raw wood over having to paint out the whole thing. Stayed for a few weeks, and even was featured in the documentary Rock Fresh.
2002.Acrylic & Krylon. Malibu, CA. Commissioned by Masa of One World Access. One world has been helping me with Draftsmen since the beginning. Masa requested a large Hendrix Mural in their front office wall which overlooks the Pacific Ocean. I felt the Blue would compliment the sea
2002.House paint & Spray paint. Hollywood, CA. Dye5 on the ‘Rapid Fire‘ piece up top. Mr. Trickster on the ‘West Coast’ at bottom. I mashed the cloud backgrounds and the B-boy with wings.
Hotsy Dunk Group Show @ The Produce Department Gallery.
Eugene The Jeep pictured to the left was part of the mural, but painted on a found sign. Los Angeles cats were just settling into the use of house paint as a primary element for spray paint murals at this time and this was one of my early demonstrations of this medium.
The gallery produced a nice limited printing of a handmade book to commemorate the group show. From what I remember, MOCA purchased a small number of them to sell at one of their LA stores.
2002.House paint & Spray paint, weekday afternoon. This lil alley wall was directly behind Stussy & Union on La Brea. I night be wrong, but I may have done this on the same day as #3. Very possible. Again, no permission.
2002. House paint & Spray paint, early afternoon. Back alley of a building for lease off La Brea. I was drawn to this wall because of the purple buff paint that someone used to cover graffiti. It ultimately became a part of the wall. I had not gotten permission to paint this piece and I was kind of sweating this one. The neighborhood was primarily ran by the Orthodox Jews & they’re kinda hard to read. All in all it stayed for almost 4 months without a problem.
2002-2005 House paint on found object. A Project? More like I had to much house paint in my studio. These were on the ‘punk ass making a mess’ style. Aggressions were let off, believe me. Around this same time Sage Vaughnwas tossing his overstock of house paint in 40OZ bottles on cement walls, they unwittingly looked like colorful palm trees.
2001.House paint & Spray paint, weekday afternoon. This was a street side wall to a Spanish apartment’s garage. A local neighborhood mural had adorned the wall perviously, but had been vandalized repeatedly. This style derived after the mural I completed for the Charizmatik store. It all revolved around the idea of movement, flow & layers. There is a ‘K’ in the center, which was intended, but the rest was a complete freestyle. Took about 2 hours & lasted a number of years.
Client: Zen & Fred of Charizmatik for the flagship store “The Treehouse Endeavor”
Location: Corner of Melrose & Van Ness St., Hollywood, Calif
Medium: House paint & American Spray paint (Iron oxide bronze by Krylon).
Summer 2001
Charizmatik was an adventurous and well conceived clothing brand based in Los Angeles that disbanded a few years back. The Store was called “The Tree House Endeavor” and ran with the concept of nature and having a child like heart. The interior of the shop was practically all wood and personal items. Walls were covered with square shaped blocks of found woodworks. I based the exterior mural around the idea of roots & foundation, hence the heavy earth tones. This was my first healthy sized top to bottom piece and it ran for 5 years.
This piece was my shining star and signified my letters for 1998. I was mastering how to create each letter individually, yet still feed off of the previous as well as the next. The KOF to the IE play off of the symbol for ‘Infinity’. I kept my colors mello, using soft like-color blends to highlight their shape and I really debated if i should highlight the letters. Im glad i didnt.
I painted this wall with a west Los Angeles Legend, JigzOne.
I was 20 years old, living at home & attending a Marker Techniques class at SMC’s Santa Monica Airport Extension. This was about a year into me painting under my moniker and I becoming comfortable with it at this point. Characters were a way for me to practice line work, color selection & fading, & when your doing these illegally on the streets, it’s good to whip them out fast. The blue one was on an untouched van in the Santa Monica Airport’s parking lot. I had been scoping her out ever since I started attending classes.
Definetly the cleanest one to date.
I was blessed to paint on one of the 
I knew at some point I would slowly slide back into taking 35mm photographs, especially after years of playing with my Polaroid Land Camera. A
It’s strange to me to call these murals, or even installations for that matter.
Foggy night. 1am. Deconstruction of an old Financial Center. Unearthed virgin cement walls. No security guards. 1 hour. House paint, acrylic and ink blend. 2 scrap cans. Parking lot illumination. Very quiet evening. Accompanied and guided by a beautiful soul.
A foggy January 2nd.11pm.Solo mission.Frustration release.Still hung over. 2 Tacos de Pastor as a reward for the evenings debauchery. 
One of the perks of living in Los Angeles is there always seems to be interesting freelance work for the film industry. I’ve had my fair share of backdrop/ art department type contributions in the last 10 years. For this gig I used washable Acrylic & Tempura Paint for a temporary mural on a raw cement surface. Filming took place in the basement of the Burbank Galleria. Thanks Geoff. 
Quick little acrylic murals for Green Earth Collective
Circles- 306˚- rare digital capture by
Painted in the summer of 2007, this piece is located behind a brownstone apartment complex in Boyle Heights, basically my backyard at the time. The wall was virgin cinderblock with chicken scratch chalk markings and a few mosquito bites from the local youth. As is usually the case, I asked no ones permission to paint this 
2004.
2
2003. Belton spray paint & acrylic. Level Store, 
