José Parlá
Painting for the people
"The process in my work is similar to that of the city. The work builds its foundation through memory."
José Parlá doesn’t paint, he dances. “My type of meditation is listening to music. I move to it, and eventually it translates into the movement that happens in the painting”. In the studio, he leaps, jumps and climbs across the canvas with his brush. The results are magnificently abstract and burst with kinetic energy. Parlá's passion for music and dance harks back to his childhood. When he was gr...
Read moreJosé Parlá doesn’t paint, he dances. “My type of meditation is listening to music. I move to it, and eventually it translates into the movement that happens in the painting”. In the studio, he leaps, jumps and climbs across the canvas with his brush. The results are magnificently abstract and burst with kinetic energy. Parlá's passion for music and dance harks back to his childhood. When he was growing up in 1980s-Miami, music was a unifying force. Hip-hop, in particular, brought communities together to dance and hang out – and Parlá aims to do the same with his art.
Together, all of Parlá’s paintings tell the story of his life. His swirling, intuitive brushstrokes are a secret language that everyone can read. “A lot of the lines that you see in the work are actual sentences. They're quotes, they're words, and they're very personal. I layer them so that only I can read them and other people can imagine them”. Language has always had a huge influence on Parlá’s practice. His trademark brushstrokes are an ode to calligraphy – from Arabic, Sanskrit and old English to Style Writing painted on the side of a subway train. There are no borders and cultural boundaries in Parlá's art. He shares his own stories only to ask other people to tell a story of their own.
José Parlá doesn’t paint, he dances. “My type of meditation is listening to music. I move to it, and eventually it translates into the movement that happens in the painting”. In the studio, he leaps, jumps and climbs across the canvas with his brush. The results are magnificently abstract and burst with kinetic energy. Parlá's passion for music and dance harks back to his childhood. When he was growing up in 1980s-Miami, music was a unifying force. Hip-hop, in particular, brought communities together to dance and hang out – and Parlá aims to do the same with his art...
Read moreJosé Parlá doesn’t paint, he dances. “My type of meditation is listening to music. I move to it, and eventually it translates into the movement that happens in the painting”. In the studio, he leaps, jumps and climbs across the canvas with his brush. The results are magnificently abstract and burst with kinetic energy. Parlá's passion for music and dance harks back to his childhood. When he was growing up in 1980s-Miami, music was a unifying force. Hip-hop, in particular, brought communities together to dance and hang out – and Parlá aims to do the same with his art.
Together, all of Parlá’s paintings tell the story of his life. His swirling, intuitive brushstrokes are a secret language that everyone can read. “A lot of the lines that you see in the work are actual sentences. They're quotes, they're words, and they're very personal. I layer them so that only I can read them and other people can imagine them”. Language has always had a huge influence on Parlá’s practice. His trademark brushstrokes are an ode to calligraphy – from Arabic, Sanskrit and old English to Style Writing painted on the side of a subway train. There are no borders and cultural boundaries in Parlá's art. He shares his own stories only to ask other people to tell a story of their own.
Cuban-American artist José Parlá was born 1973 in Miami, Florida and now practices in Brooklyn, New York.
The artist was awarded a scholarship from Savannah College of Art & Design at just 16 years old when a teacher discovered the already-exceptional calibre of his work.
Many cite It’s Yours, Parlá’s 2020 solo exhibition at The Bronx Museum of The Arts, as New York's last great pre-pandemic opening.
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