Pardon Me, is centered around this humongous in scale work by the iconic artist Marquis Lewis, aka Retna. The tryptic serves as a letter to the artist’s mother. This jaw dropping triptych was conceived whilst in rehab and participating in harmonic healing therapy.
Created during a period of clarity and reflection, Lewis recalls feeling compelled to paint whilst listening to a song, though he is unable to recall the exact song he was listening to at the time of its creation. But he can easily recognise his starting points, a C in the top corner of the first panel, and can follow the flow of the song through each panel of the work. The piece has harmony, the color and text follow a rhythm.
Pardon Me (2021) captures Lewis’ iconic bold and structured text work blended with the artist’s current use of vibrant color and more relaxed brushwork. The series pays tribute to his mother and beautifully captures Lewis’s ever evolving artmaking practice and process.
Marquis Lewis | BIO
Marquis Lewis (RETNA) was born in 1979 in Los Angeles. At the age of fifteen, he began painting on posted fashion advertisements and, from there, led one of the largest and most innovative graffiti art collectives in the city. In addition to exhibiting at institutions and galleries in Los Angeles (including the façade of The Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art’s Grand Avenue location for their 2013 Gala celebrating the blockbuster exhibition Art In The Streets), Miami, London, New York (including the prestigious public exhibition space of the Houston-Bowery Wall), and Hong Kong, Lewis has created exclusive collaborations with brands such as VistaJet, Nike, Louis Vuitton, and Chanel. Lewis lives and works in Los Angeles.
