RETNA: FLIP THE SCRIPT

Retna, whose real name is Marquis Duriel Lewis, is a Los Angeles-born and based artist is known for his contemporary text-based graffiti and street art style. Retna has become widely known worldwide for his large-scale canvases that feature his custom-designed geometric script. Moreover, Retna’s artwork is collected by many celebrities, including R&B icon Usher and comedian Dave Chappelle.

Raised in Los Angeles, Retna grew up in a world that surrounded him with graffiti and street art of all kinds. To this day, he admits that his primary influence comes from Los Angeles graffiti culture, including hip-hop. Interestingly, Retna views street art and graffiti as an alternative to gang culture, which affects the city’s youth even today. To him, graffiti is a way of taking ownership of the city communally and creatively without resolving the violence and territorialism of LA gang culture.

Although many consider Retna to have fully immersed himself in street art culture, the artist claims that his street art has evolved into something akin to a fine art over time. This is part and parcel of his need to declare himself and other street artists as serious, full-time artists. Retna has achieved this status, as his work is exhibited and highly renowned nationally and internationally.

What’s more, Retna expresses his seriousness as an artist by having created his own script. Influenced by language and etymology, which is the study of the origins of words, Retna takes inspiration from myriad global typography styles, including Hebrew script and Egyptian hieroglyphics. Interestingly, Retna uses this script to make the geometric script of his artworks more globally accessible, a goal that many critics and fans proclaim he has achieved. This is because the artist’s work appears to express some form of universality by allowing people of different cultural backgrounds to find similarities despite not being able to read it.

For those unfamiliar with Retna’s work, the appeal of his pieces appears to lie in the bold visual urgency of his geometric abstractions, which give an in-your-face feeling to the spectator. However, for those more familiar with the artist’s work, each piece seems to evolve into something beyond a simple geometric and abstract script. Each piece reveals itself as a complex linguistic code, waiting for that one eager eye to come along and decrypt the message. This is further confirmed by the artist, who states that each artwork carries a unique and hidden meaning. Some point to particular events, while others to particular people and famous dialogues.  

Over the years, Retna has collaborated with some of the most iconic fashion brands globally, including industry giants Chanel and Louis Vuitton. He has even collaborated with Nike as his unique, bold script has become iconic in its ability to adorn various products and brands.

Retna’s indication that he uses his art to strive for a universal visual language is not the first of its kind. However, his unique way of approaching the idea of a universal visual language is appealing enough to have many people waiting at the edge of their seats for what this brilliant artist has in store for them next.