JOSÉ PARLÁ- from The Block

José Parlá is a contemporary artist, a painter. Parlá also works with photography, filmmaking with his brother Rey Parlá, sculpture, and printmaking. Parlá was born to Cuban parents in exile in Miami, Florida. He started painting in 1983, and in 1988 received a scholarship to the Savannah College of Art & Design. He began painting on city walls using the name "Ease," following the tradition of New York subway art.

If Cy Twombly or Jackson Pollock grew up brandishing spray paint cans under the cloak of night, their work would probably look a lot like José Parlá’s. Inspired largely by his roots in Miami’s graffiti scene and travels around the world, Parlá’s work is a contemporary take on abstract expressionism. Highly personal, emotive, intricate and labour intensive, his trademark style and subject matter bring out the history and beauty of decaying city walls. We caught up with the Brooklyn-based artist as he was preparing to unveil his latest body of work, titled Walls, Diaries, and Paintings, at Bryce Wolkowitz Gallery in New York City.

The Block: Tell me about your upcoming show Walls, Diaries and Paintings.

José: Walls, Diaries and Paintings is opening on March Third at BryceWolkowitz Gallery. I’ve been working on it for a year so it’s all new artwork. Never been seen before. I wanted to distinguish three different steps to my work and to the paintings. Paintings that are almost photorealistic that resemble walls. Paintings that are diaristic in their nature because I’m keeping journals in these sort of palimpsestic paintings in black and white where the text is layered and camouflaged and rendered illegible, almost in the way that a diary is private and you’re not allowed to read someone’s diary. And paintings where the images are combining the walls, the diaries andcabstraction in painting. It’s contemporary abstraction that deals with a rhythm and an energy that’s very personal to my life experience. The work is combining all those aspects. Together with that, we’re producing a book by the same title, Walls, Diaries and Paintings, that’s edited by German publication house, Hatje Cantz.

The Block: What is it you find most inspiring about city walls?

José: I grew up painting on walls. It was one of my passions. I was already into art and drawing, like most kids, but when I returned to Miami — my family moved to Puerto Rico when I was a kid — it was the very early days of what was going on in the U.S. with hip hop culture coming down from New York. I saw it spreading everywhere at that time. It was about 1982 or 1983. I was turning 10 years old and all around the neighbourhood there was art on the walls. My classmates were painting and showing me where to go [to do it], and we were going out and painting at night. So I was always inspired to paint on walls during that period of my life.

Once that was the inspiration, I was always looking at walls, so I carried a camera all the time. It was just as important to document the walls that we were painting as [to paint] them. At the same time that I was taking photographs of the pieces on walls — like the traditional old school graffiti that we were doing — I was also taking photographs of the buildings that we were painting, or the train yards. The art of the walls I saw then was really deteriorated, or rusted, or the paint had chipped, or there were parts of the walls where people had painted over each other for years. Sometimes I could see that sort of history of the wall, and that always interested me as a language, a dialogue of voices in the street. I started to see that there was a birth, a death, and a rebirth going on. People in the street communicate indirectly via the walls. Sort of a sporadic germination of history that was taking place on the walls — a random process of life, death and rebirth. And that became, eventually, my subject matter.

The Block: I’ve also heard you refer to walls as the voice of the people.

José: I think it’s always been like that. If you go back into history, back to the cave paintings, they are some of the earliest recordings of civilization. How people documented themselves first was on cave walls. Obviously, hieroglyphics in Egypt. Throughout history, people have documented themselves through some kind of writing form or another. I think that was just a way for me to find some historical point of view of people’s voices on walls and a way for me to find some kind of comfort.

The Block: Can I get you to take me through the process of producing a painting?

José: When I’m traveling, I always carry a camera to document the city, not just walls, but taking photos of anything I find interesting, people or landscapes and cityscapes. When I’m back in the studio I start to look at the photos and think about what I’ve been through during that trip or what I’m going through in my life, and I start to combine all of it as a journal, so the paintings have always been these journals for me.

I like to combine old posters that I rip down, chunks of walls, tiles, and found objects that are on walls in the places I visit and around New York. Then I incorporate and collage them into the paintings. This gives me a lot of different points of departure.

To take you through that a little bit closer, I’m using techniques that I incorporated into painting by experimenting throughout many years, of seeing what would happen if I mixed this with that. And then, you know, thinking about the painters of the past from the Renaissance throughout the 20th century, imagining how they applied paint to the canvas. I use new invented markers that I make at home or I combine spray paint with plaster, and plaster with gel medium. And then the collage is ripped and torn as if it’s something that’s happening outside in the city already. To do that, I try to imagine how it would happen. So I attempt to get into a character, as if I was someone who just walked by and ripped something off the wall or wrote something instantaneously. Or if I was someone who was writing something on the wall that needed to get a message across. Or somebody who just felt like defacing something out of anger.

The Block: So when you’re in the studio, a lot of this is improvised?

José: A lot of work is improvised. There’s a certain dialogue and language that I already understand about my work by doing this. So, as much as I can say it’s spontaneous, there are also plans to be spontaneous. There are many things I know I’m going to do to the painting. Then there are things I don’t think about that deeply, it’s just moving quickly through, the forward thrust of the gesture is what counts.

The Block: How do you keep the energy up on a day-to-day basis in the studio or get through creative roadblocks?

José: Coffee [laughs]. No, once you hit a block there’s nothing you can do except just wait. The thing is, I like to work on many paintings at once. It’s not just one piece, then I hit a block, and then I can’t move on. If I hit a block with one painting, most of the time I can turn to another painting and keep going. The idea is that one painting teaches me about the next one.

The Block: It’s pretty clear that you remain true to your roots through your artwork. Is this something that’s important to you?

José: Of course it is. Graffiti is not just an art, you have to think about it like this: it’s a lifestyle. It’s a subculture that was a counterculture. It came out of many different things. It’s a human instinct that’s probably existed for centuries. The type of style I come from, coming out of New York City, Miami, it’s the voice of the ghetto, you could say. It strongly comes from street culture — young people needing to figure themselves out culturally. It came out of the 70s and 80s when there were major economic cutbacks in the school system. They said there wasn’t enough money to advocate more culture in the schools, like more art, dance, or music classes. When all that was cut back, I feel that young people still needed to express their feelings and they took it upon themselves to invent art. So, graffiti art, break dancing, and different styles of punk rock that came out, or skate culture, a lot of the counterculture that was coming out, I think was just something that people needed to do. If you look at it, it was a whole subculture of art that was controlled by youth. And the youth rejected anything that had the parents telling them what the art should be like. Or the schools telling them what the art should be like, and the more they were told what to do, the more the artwork became rebellious and more self-sustained within a certain code and language.

Graffiti, to me, is not just a thing that you can say, “Oh graffiti, here it is. Art!” It came from a subculture; it came from a need. It was socioeconomic, political. Then it spread throughout the whole United States and the world at the same time. I feel like I was a part of the early days of that. If you count me in as coming in the 80s, it was still early because it was before the major stream of books on the subject were published that were inspired by The Faith of Graffiti and Subway Art. It was before the internet, it was before a lot of those things.

There was a rite of passage to be a part of it. I had to study and prove myself. In essence, you had to make strong work to get into the strongest groups that had the better style. Whether you were a guy that was painting, a rapper, a skater, whatever you were doing. Nowadays, everyone’s joining in quickly. That’s what I mean. Is it important to me? It was a huge part of life since I was a kid, so I think the roots will always coexist with something new that I’m bringing in through my work.



The Block: I’m sure a lot of artists are inspired by your work. What advice would you give them?

José: Work harder than you think you have to. Define yourself. Find your own place in history. Don’t copy other artists. And just be as original as possible.

The Block: Finally, what’s your personal definition of success?

José: To be surrounded by the people you love and the people that love you. That’s success.

Writer Michael Mann Photographer Colin Lane

More art from JOSÉ PARLÁ :

Rose Wiley

Rose Wiley is an artist I discovered only a few years ago. Her art is so authentic and real you either connect with it immediately or you hesitate to try and figure it all out. The interview below between Wiley and Rosanna Durham gives the viewer greater understanding of Wiley's art and her creative process.

Large-scale painter Rose Wylie has an exhibition at Tate Britain opening on Tuesday. Rosanna Durham spoke to Rose for Issue Six.

Rose Wylie is a rare thing: a painter labelled as up-and-coming despite being in her seventies. She went to art school in 1956 but after graduating she stopped working to look after her children. In 1979, Rose picked up her brushes again and is now a celebrated artist. She paints motifs from popular culture on huge canvases with childlike directness, layering paint and paper many times to achieve the effect she wants. She is a keen film fan and this often finds its way into her work.

Are you frustrated that your work wasn’t better known earlier in your career?
I’ve done loads of painting without any pressure, which is very nice. You may not have recognition or money, but you can do what you like. I’ve always liked the restriction of not having money. When artists become successful, their work doesn’t stay the same. When people buy my work, in one way I don’t want them to take it and in another way I’ve got too many paintings to handle. But as soon as your paintings leave, you don’t want them to.

If you get recognised just out of art college, you’ve got to work with that reputation and the misery of whether you can keep it going or not. You do stuff according to what people want to buy and that’s the worst thing. That’s why I always thought Madonna was so good, because she did something quite different and occasionally quite shocking.

I’m also a big fan of Madonna because she always reinvents herself. So am I. Some of the things she did were difficult for people to take, but I’m a fan. I’ve done loads of drawings of Madonna. My husband listens to her music more than I do. I don’t have music in the studio. I can’t be arsed with it. I’m not technologically dependent.

Why do you paint with your canvas on the floor? 
I suppose it’s the opposite of the rather fancy male painter on his easel. Traditionally men go out to work and women potter around the house cleaning. Painting on the floor links to a lot about women’s lives—or far too much of it, anyway—things about scrubbing and cleaning on your hands and knees. But I hate cleaning. My paintings are, obliquely, about male domination. I don’t like male domination. I hate it. I just want equality. I think women can be different from men, but not always.

Your method of work is also interesting because you stick pieces of paper over your drawings and start again, or even stitch extra pieces of canvas onto paintings in progress. You have to keep changing a painting or drawing to get it to look right. You handle the materials in order to do what you do. Now a lot of people think, “Oh these paintings are very nice because they have these additions.” But the additions are only there because I wanted more room on the canvas. I don’t start off thinking I’m going to add a piece because it might become a mannerism and I don’t actually like that. I’m against mannerisms. They are fake. I think they can take over and become routine.

I like things happening spontaneously. So when I’m drawing, I work a lot with ink, and you can’t rub it out or remove it. So I stick a bit of paper down and go on over it. If that’s not right, I stick another piece and then that may be better. The paper can get quite thick.

That reminds me: I was always told not to rub out my drawings when I was in primary school. I love rubbing out because we’re told not to! I tend to do things that you’re advised not to do. I don’t like the ultra ‘I am so serious’ attitude to life. But some people are more interested in knowledge and knowing stuff. They’re not interested in a picture if it hasn’t been printed in an art magazine. They love acceptance, they love print, they like confirmation.

I think a lot of people are unsure about what to think.Reinforcement is important for people, but if you decide that you are going against that as an artist, you see a different side. My daughter has a friend and he poo-poos what I do because he thinks it’s childish and silly.
What, openly? Oh, yes, he howls with laughter. He asks her, “What kind of absurd thing is your mother doing now?”

How do you feel about him saying that?
Wonderful! I don’t mind it at all. It’s all grist, you see. Some people see my paintings and say, “This is nursery work.” But in fact, I like art that isn’t knowing. I did a painting about African lorry art, for example. When untaught African artists want to get their work seen, they paint lorries. The lorry goes from village to village, town to town. It’s like a touring art exhibition! They paint what they know: lions, zebras, palm trees and lizards. And they do them in the most beautiful way, not steeped in knowledge of the history of art. I think they are terrific. Cartoons slot into that way of working.
What’s interesting about cartoons for you? Cartoons are very elemental. They pick up a clear aspect of something or someone and then they put it down in a rather exaggerated way. Cartoon language is there in some of my paintings and I’ve used the style of the cartoon shadows in my figures. Painting is nothing to do with being right or wrong or logic anyway.

You’ve mentioned before that you also find children’s work interesting. 
I like children’s work very much. A child will just look at a boat and draw it. There won’t be any stylistic form. I don’t like artistic things. I know the argument that you can’t do children’s work when you’re not a child. After a while you begin to think “I’m an artist” and you do artist’s work. When I watch films, I try to deal with them like a child looking at a boat.

You’ve recently painted a scene from Inglourious Basterds. Tell me about your relationship with Tarantino.
His films are pretty violent, and also completely over the top. Uma Thurman killing all those men in black at the end of the first Kill Bill! She kills about a hundred and ninety men; slices them up. But, and you probably think this rather peculiar having said it’s a bit violent, I think he leads a campaign for a hidden, spiritual re-look at things. I don’t know whether you agree?
Really? Tarantino? Well, there’s a scene in Pulp Fiction where Joules is saved from being shot at. Protected by spirituality, which Tarantino is obviously interested in. The bullet episode is actually a miracle, and it is in fact a cloudily spiritual film.
I have to re-watch it after what you just said. Everyone just thinks of him as a very smart, possibly fake, over-violent Hollywood director.

How do you use films in your painting? 
I think films are a very interesting 20th and 21st century art form. When I grew up films were lesser art forms. My husband and I watch a lot of films. Soon they start to merge. If you watch two or three films a week, you do mix them up. If I see something in a film and think it’s memorable, or just terrific, I let it sink in and the next day I try and draw it. Then I really know if it was memorable or not.
Focus: Rose Wylie runs from 14 May - 6 October at Tate Britain.

Wassily Kandinsky

Kandinsky and the Spiritual in Art

Kandinsky, credited with creating the first modern abstract paintings, published Concerning the Spiritual in Art in London in 1914 under the name, The Art of Spiritual Harmony. Kandinsky went through a long period of development and maturation as his art slowly lost it’s resemblance to three dimensional every-day reality. Kandinsky’s art and his words remain an inspiration for artists today who seek to move beyond “art for art’s sake” and express universal spiritual truths with their work.

In his introduction Kandinsky says, “The nightmare of materialism, which has turned the life of the universe into an evil, useless game, is not yet past; it holds the awakening soul still in it grip”. A little over one hundred years later these words speak succinctly to our current state of crisis. The world financial crisis, global climate change, escalating violence and high-tech wars, all point out the destruction brought on by the greed of excessive materialism.

In Kandinsky’s time the vast majority of museum goers and art lovers could only understand art that represented reality. And even though modern and post-modern art have opened us to new ways of seeing, the gate-keepers of the art world currently have very little room for art with spiritual content.

But today, there is a great awakening, a re-membering of our soul’s connection; more and more people from all walks of life are responding to the spiritual in art. As an artist I take these words of Schumann to heart. “To send light into the darkness of men’s hearts- such is the duty of the artist.”

— Kandinsky on Cezanne – “He painted these things as he painted human beings, because he was endowed with the gift of divining the inner life in everything."