RETNA

b. 1979, USA

RETNA (real name Marquis Lewis, born 1979 in Los Angeles, California) is an American contemporary artist. He grew up in multicultural Los Angeles and began working in the city's street art and graffiti scene in the 1990s; he took the name RETNA from a line in a Wu-Tang Clan song. His work is built on a calligraphy-like alphabet of his own, drawing on Arabic, Hebrew and Asian calligraphy, Gothic lettering, Old English typefaces, and Inca and Egyptian hieroglyphs. The signs cannot be read directly: they work both as text and as abstract form. In the work offered by the gallery, red gestural signs are set against a dark background.

1 artwork to rent