While I was in LA for MOCA Haze had mentioned a new wall he had recently painted at the Standard Hotel in Downtown Los Angeles. Taking the day to flick a bunch of murals around LA, I headed out to see this mural and I was curious to see how the legend would approach the large wall. Haze sums it up nicely with this quote from our recent feature about his current direction “I have pushed further trying to distill the essence of certain things through simple icons like stars, arrows or crowns, or at times reducing everything to pure geometry and abstraction, where the work becomes as much about the action and quality of line for it’s own sake as anything else.” This is a very important statement when viewing the work of Haze and one that comes from a veteran of many aspects of Design, Art, and Graffiti. The fusion of these influences permeates through and into his work. This is very clear in this new wall installation. Haze’s ability to push into new directions through the subtraction of elements instead of the addition of overt and unneeded forms is his gift. Being able to fully capture the imperfect perfection of a line, yet install the iconography of a culture all in one stroke is the genius of Haze. I am very glad to see him painting more large scale walls to go along with his already legendary group of design work.
Speaking of his design work here are some pictures from Haze’s contribution and installation at the “Art in the Streets” exhibition at Moca. A glance into the iconography and significance that Haze’s design work has had on our art form. I would have loved to see a Mural like the one painted above in the show but as history goes this show seemed to be more about the past rather than the future or the present. I am sure we will get our chance to see Haze’s new work in many venues in the future. Till then enjoy these picture courtesy of Haze.
GF
Here is a brief quote about the wall in the artists words.
“At 40’ x 6’, I thought the wall was an ideal dimension for the kind of painting which calls for a full stroke top to bottom, the same way we would have approached a T2B on a train car from a platform or catwalk back in the day…
I also thought it would be a good place to start working with a combination of spray paint and traditional brush,
looking to conceptually fuse together different references through the juxtaposition of technique and materials.”