USA Graffitism
Lin Felton, known as QUIK, is an American graffiti artist living and working in Brooklyn, New York.
At the age of ten, he was already painting on subway trains, marking the "Star 10" as he called himself at first. Two years later, he took the pseudonym QUIK, under which he later became internationally known. In the early 1980s, he was attending PRATT Institute and Parsons School of Design when he was discovered by a prominent Dutch art dealer.
Felton has developed recognizable satirical comic imagery that he extends far beyond simple taglines, introducing both social and personal issues into his paintings. The theme of racial inequality in American society became prevalent in his work, combined with cynical juxtapositions of popular cartoon characters, pin-up girls, and writing on walls.
Although today Felton's work can be seen in numerous galleries and museums in the United States, Japan, Europe and Hong Kong, his real passion remained on walls and on trains, which even landed him in jail several times.
RETNA (born Marquis Lewis) is a contemporary artist, primarily recognized for graffiti art. He was born and raised in Los Angeles, California, and started his career in the early 1990s. He developed a distinctive constructed script which is derived from Blackletter, Egyptian Hieroglyphics, Arabic, and Hebrew calligraphy, as well as more traditional types of street-based graffiti. In addition to exhibiting at institutions and galleries in Los Angeles, Miami, London, New York and Hong Kong, Retna has done advertising work for brands such as VistaJet, Louis Vuitton, and Nike. His artwork adorns the cover of Justin Bieber's Purpose album that debuted in 2015. Retna has many high profile patrons, including fast food magnate Sam Nazarian.
ZEPHYR, born Andrew Witten, is a graffiti artist, lecturer and author from New York City. He began writing graffiti in 1975 using the name "Zephyr" in 1977. He is considered a graffiti "elder", who along with Futura 2000, Blade, PHASE 2, CASH, Lady Pink and TAKI 183 invented styles and standards which are still in use.
Much of Zephyr's original work was graffiti applied on New York City Subway rolling stock. Witten was part of the first wave of graffiti artists to make the transition to galleries, collectors and commercial work.