Jose Parla - ADAPTATION / TRANSLATION
10 October - 8 November 2008Tuesday - Saturday 12 - 6pm, Thursdays 'til 8pm
The first UK solo show of paintings by José Parlá opens to the public on Friday 10th October.
This will be Parlá 's first solo exhibition in UK, and marks an important point in his development.
Including large site specific paintings this promises to be one of
THE exhibitions in London this Autumn.
“As our society moves forward through time, ever faster and in ever more complex patterns of living, we forget our spirit - our inner growth. We believe ourselves to be on the cusp of evolution but perhaps we are only experiencing an involution. The marks on the walls of our cities are perhaps a testimonial, like scars of a wounded civilization.”
José Parlá: thoughts written from Taganga, Colombia. July 10th, 2008
Brooklyn based artist José Parlá will be showing in a spectacular and much anticipated first solo show in London at the Elms Lesters Painting Rooms.
Born in Miami in 1973, Parlá then moved to Puerto Rico. After being raised in the Caribbean island by his Cuban parents, Parlá returned to Miami at the age of nine where he began painting and remained there until being awarded,a scholarship to Savannah College of Art & Design in Georgia.
In Adaptation / Translation, Parlá further explores the wanderings of urban populations to translate these personal experiences and make visible manifestations of what lies beneath our
surfaces.
By drawing inspiration from the urban landscape, the energy and memory which feeds him, José Parlá creates a visual narrative of his experiences in different cities. Through the multilayered, psycho-geographical, calligraphic nature of his work he embeds these stories in his paintings and invites the viewer to discover his vision of the
environment.
Parlá is therefore not just a painter, but a new kind of novelist; a modern storyteller who uses wall gestures, the writing on the wall, and found advertisings to reconstruct complex stories and anatomies.
José Parlá began painting under the name Ease in 1983 on city walls, and while painting in the tradition of New York subway art, he also was experimenting on canvas with the desire to translate the decaying environment of derelict places which later inspired his cityscapes aesthetic and continues to inform his work today.
Parlá’s paintings reveal a silent message of time and history spoken through the walls of the world’s cities; a landscape which speaks of deterioration, neglect, and abandonment. The results, whilst beautiful, with their multicolours and hidden memories, are significant in that they reflect some of the darker aspects of our civilization.
Elms Lester Painting Rooms will publish a limited edition book to accompany the exhibition, fully illustrated and with an essay by critical theorist Michael Betancourt, an authority on José Parlá’s work, and an introduction by author, academic and collector Saeb Eigner.
“What Parlá’s work provides to its viewers is a way to re-see the city and re-engage the value of urban life.”
Michael Betancourt
press enquiries should be directed to:
marta.bogna@ideageneration.co.uk
Artist page
Books
