RETNA: Love Letter | Carta de Amor
Opening Night: 20 September | 6-8pm | Artist in Attendance
San Diego, California – Madison Gallery proudly presents the highly anticipated solo exhibition from internationally acclaimed contemporary artist, RETNA. Titled LOVE Letter | Carta de Amor, this exhibition invites collectors and admirers into a more intimate dialogue with the artist’s evolving script; a language that has become iconic in modern art and luxury design alike. Through bold canvases, site-specific installations, and striking mixed media works, RETNA examines love in all its forms: sacred, destructive, redemptive, and universal.
“This is my letter to the people I love, the city that raised me, the pain that shaped me, and the faith that carries me forward. It’s a confession, a prayer, and a thank you all at once.” - RETNA
RETNA, born Marquis Lewis (Los Angeles, b. 1979), has redefined contemporary art through his distinctive typographic language; bridging graffiti, illuminated manuscripts, and global iconography. His blended cultural heritage, being of African-American, El Salvadorian, Spaniard, Pipil and Cherokee descent has played a large role in his journey through the art world. Choosing the moniker RETNA from the lyrics to a Wu-Tang Clan song, Lewis joined the buzzing graffiti scene of the city as a teenager, developing his now signature calligraphic style that features a keen attention to detail and skillful layering. His artworks fuse visual references to fashion, various types of linguistics and lettering, including Blackletter, Egyptian Hieroglyphics, Arabic and Hebrew calligraphy, as well as symbols from urban culture.
Indecipherable and enigmatic, RETNA creates unique pictographic landscapes, celebrating the idea of multiculturalism and interconnection, while exploring the possibilities of conceptual meaning within an image, revealing new ways of understanding and perceiving visual codes.
His gradual transition from solely street art to the contemporary art world was marked by the group exhibition Art in the Streets, hosted by the LA Museum of Contemporary Art in 2011. This was followed by an invitation by the same museum in 2013 to create an installation for his solo exhibition, RETNA: Para mi gente. Since emerging on the scene, his work has been exhibited wordwide, from Los Angeles to New York to London to Lebanon, and featured in high profile collaborations wih luxury brands, such as Louis Vuitton, Chanel, Nike, VIstaJet, among others.
In LOVE Letter | Carta de Amor, RETNA explores self-love, self-reflection, resilience and rebirth. Using his distinctive and evocative calligraphic style known worldwide, RETNA offers us a personal and profound look into the mind and journey of born street Artist, Marquis Lewis and the body of work he beared his soul for.
Founded in 2001, Madison Gallery is committed to representing a global program of mid-career and established international artists working in various media and materiality. Madison Gallery's program focuses on internationally recognized, museum-level artists whose work contributes to domestic and international cultural dialogue.
The gallery presents significant Latin artists and brings international artists to Southern California for the first time. Many of the gallery's primary artists, shown initially with Madison Gallery, are now being exhibited internationally and by established galleries in other cities, proving that the gallery has become a significant platform for young talent to launch their careers. Inspired by an earnest dedication and passion for art, the gallery consistently curates and exhibits a high standard of contemporary art.
Madison Gallery offers a complete range of services to the lifelong collector and the first-time buyer, including in-home curatorial services, personal collection development and curating, on-site consultation, virtual previews, international sourcing, and worldwide shipping. The gallery works closely in building private, corporate, and public museum institutional collections, thus placing it amongst the leading contemporary galleries in southern California. Lorna's care and attention to artist relations at the gallery give contemporary art a space to thrive in Southern California by creating a stronger sense of community with the art world.
