Thursday
Oct092025
Retna 'Eastern Realm' Print Waitlist Open
Thursday, October 9, 2025 
Artist: Retna
Title: Eastern Realm
Medium: UV Printed Mirror Mounted To Aluminium
Size: 27 x 36 Inches
Edition: 99
Price: $9,500
Retna born Marquis Lewis in 1979 on the streets of Los Angeles turns alphabets into incantations. Drawing on Mayan, Egyptian, Hebrew, Arabic and Gothic black-letter scripts, he has forged an elegant, unreadable calligraphy that feels ancient yet algorithmic, a coded chant meant for every culture and none. He discovered the name “Retna” in a Wu-Tang Clan lyric about light burning the retina, and the metaphor stuck: his white hot linework does scorch the eye. Starting with spray cans on bus stop ads at fifteen, he soon swapped aerosol for long haired brushes, layering house-paint, aerosol and 24K gold leaf until letters hover like textile over raw canvas.
Murals soon scaled whole city blocks: a 24-storey social-housing façade in Mexico City, the Bowery Wall in New York, and the stage design for San Francisco Opera’s Aida prove his glyphic system can sanctify concrete or velvet equally. Luxury came calling Louis Vuitton storefronts, Justin Bieber’s Purpose album cover, Chanel Beverly Hills, Ryca yet Retna insists each commission is a public talisman, not a logo.
Monochromatic fields of indigo, blood scarlet or molten copper amplify the rhythm of his strokes; drips are allowed, revealing the human pulse behind the cipher. Collectors from Usher to the Broad Museum chase his coded poems, but Retna claims meaning is optional: “I want people to feel the music of the shapes.” Still based in L.A., he continues to paint, meditate and archive new symbols, ensuring his secret language stays fluent in an ever-splintering world.
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