My work is inspired by the anonymous art found in the streets. The art may be calligraphy or torn and stripped posters. The inscriptions in my work are used as a form of drawing, and to maintain a record of my observations. In my travels I have encountered a similar dialogue that takes place in most cities. I find compositions on surfaces of deteriorated walls, and remnants of construction markings. In my paintings I create layers and textures representing the ages of memories collected through different periods of my life. Evidence is left on walls by fleeting creators both aware of their message, and oblivious to what I may find in their signs. Still, they remain mostly unidentified. When working on my paintings I imagine different people are making choices to write, paint, or destroy the surfaces. To do this I employ techniques to age my work, adopting materials normally used in construction. I am using my imagination to capture the psychology of a segmented reality. These realities, which are deposited into our subconscious everyday, are the basis for a dialogue that goes mostly unnoticed. Once these “segmented realities” or images are transferred and converted into paintings they become a “memory document,” a sort of time capsule for my experience in history. With this language I hope to communicate and provoke thoughts of the past and present conditions in the human spirit.

José Parlá was born in Miami in 1973 and studied at the Savannah College of Art and Design in Georgia as well as The New World School of the Arts in Miami, Florida. Following travels in the Caribbean, South America, Asia, and Europe in the nineteen nineties, Parla settled permanently in New York. His work has been exhibited and collected by Agnes B. Galerie Du Jour in Paris during the New York Scene exhibition (2003), and the Hi & Lo exhibition curated by Takashi Murakami and Hiroshi Fujiwara at Kai Kai Ki Ki gallery in Tokyo in 2009.