Graffiti Mandala
In 1995 our Los Angeles city council had invited six Buddhists Monks from India. The Monks had traveled to many spots in the world to worked with troubled city youths. They would make a round 10 ft. ‘Mandala’ paintings from colored sand ( Buddhists symbols of compassion). They worked with two gangs, the ‘Avenues’ and ‘C.P. Boys’. I had volunteered to help the gang members to participate. The sand paintings took two months long and there were no deaths that summer in my neighborhood, but once the Monks left, the killings started again. The Graffiti Mandala painting is my attempt to find ‘my friends’ (graffiti crews), ‘my influences’ (hot rod, low rider, tribal tattoo and surf cultures). I would ask myself “who protects me?’ The painting took about two years to complete. I did not have or want a complete image when I started, I just followed my heart and instincts and most importantly ‘listened’ to the painting and respected the painting as a ‘teacher’. I had no preconception of what the visual composition the painting would form, my only motivation was to illustrate a visual ‘truth’ of Los Angeles graffiti unity.
Golden Boy
Golden Boy, is corporal, not flat. It is seductive, tempts tactile attraction. Stylized sensuality. Carnality romanticized without exposing even an inch of genitalia. A resplendent male physique. The object of the artist’s passion. One wants to touch Golden Boy’s tauntingly taut, beautifully defined, well worked abdomen-exercised contours that could only stir envy in other men’s eyes and would be the pleasure of women. An artist’s model. Who is the Golden Boy? The artist lets us know in a poem placed next to the painting. The GOLDEN BOY is the victim, and the criminal of all crime. He is the youth, and the strength of us all. He is willing to give up his life, and believes he will never die. He is the saint who will take our pain, and the one we blame. He is the boy made of Gold.
Lament To Playboy Eddie
Eddie's Lament is from the text of a poem written in a letter to me from prison by Playboy Eddie. He was sentenced to five years for car jacking in 1993. Who was I. how does it end? Fresh out of juvenile hall, gun in your hand, ready for anything. What's up Ese? Pick the life of violence, greed is your downfall, you're on the road to death. From juvenile hall, to the county, and finally the state penn. For every brick he has on his face, is for every year he has been in solitary confinement. And you ask yourself and what have I become?
El Desire, El Power, El Love in the U.S.A.
This painting is done in a black and white scratch board style. This tradition references the prison experience, where there are very limited art supplies. Most art is done on cardboard using black indian ink, shoe polish or burnt matches, on top of white or aluminum foil. Then the image is scratched in with a sharp point. El Desire, El Power, El Love in the U.S.A. is a painting about how a handgun in the hands of our youth, fantasize how it could solve all their problems of desire, power and love. This illusion is false and dramatized by the oversized Dream Gun.
Dialogue In The Ivory Tower
The painting took two and a half years to complete. It was intended as a work in progress, without a compositional look, The painting is a gathering of specific groups of names and places. I used a Cholo graffiti style typeface to describe the identity of other persons who have contributed to the graffiti art movement. They are not graffiti writers themselves but instead; art dealers, art collectors, curators and galleries. They contribute to the dialogue of what is graffiti, and who are the players? We all contribute to a form of graffiti in our lives. By either getting it up on a wall or adding to the scholarship on graffiti as an art-form. It's america's newest art movement.
L.A. Medusa
All the graffiti writers in Los Angeles have smiles on their faces, full of graffiti pride. In my own rebel youth you combed your hair back in a pompadour or you had long hippy hair. Today the youth sport a short buzz head, hair cut. I painted a roll call of graffiti names on the wall, to represent the dangerous, mythical Medusa. Her hair is drawn from their tag names: (Relic, Man 1, Toomer, Mear etc.). L.A. Medusa is a warrior shield for L.A. graffiti writers.
Got Green Card
Got Green Card? is a statement about racism in Los Angeles. Being a Chicano artist I have been stopped and questioned many times in my life and asked about my citizenship. Being brown of color in the United States your citizenship is always under suspicion of being an illegal immigrant. I have placed two obvious natives ( from my trip to Papua New Guinea) questioning themselves, Are you a citizen?, Do you have a green card? . Having a green card in the United States allows you the right to work. I ask myself what does a real illegal look like?, not just by their color of skin. The Los Angeles police should ask real looking nativesÕ if they are citizens, not just any random brown persons in the city. But life is unjust and very difficult, like a bullfight. This serigraph print was printed at Pasadena City College as a special class project in their print department.
Los Avenues
The painting took two and a half years to complete. It was intended as a work in progress, without a compositional look, Los Avenues is about my neighborhood (the avenues) of northeast Los Angeles. I created a skull symbol Senor Suerte that represented our lifestyle in the streets. You live with the gang style next door your entire life. To Latino people, a skulls representation is not about death, but about rebirth. A tradition from our Aztec heritage, these images are still manifested in our Day of the Dead festivals today.My Skull is the gangster image for protection from death. Our local street gang The Avenues have claimed the Skull as their own. Many men in prison have the Skull tattooed on their bodies, from the top of their skulls to the sides of their necks, arms, chests and full backs. You have to earn it to have it tattooed. The Los Avenues print shows the Skull with his back protected by his homies, (friends) names listed on the wall. His forward path is being lit by the glowing light of the cross. The cross in this case represents his allegiance to the street life La Vida Loca. The paper is painted first using Zolatone paint. A multi-colored automotive industrial paint. After printing the silkscreen image, I use sandpaper wearing down the letters into the background, creating an asphalt street look. I then lay down three separate stencils and spray paint with spray cans, two white highlights off the cross, and a black border around the entire print.
L.A. Medusa
All the graffiti writers in Los Angeles have smiles on their faces, full of graffiti pride. In my own rebel youth you combed your hair back in a pompadour or you had long hippy hair. Today the youth sport a short buzz head, hair cut. I painted a roll call of graffiti names on the wall, to represent the dangerous, mythical Medusa. Her hair is drawn from their tag names: (Relic, Man 1, Toomer, Mear etc.). L.A. Medusa is a warrior shield for L.A. graffiti writers.