RETNA | Say My Name, So You Can See Me

RETNA (Marquis Lewis, b. 1979)
Say My Name, So You Can See Me
Diamond dust on silkscreen

RETNA is a Los Angeles-based artist whose invented script — a hybrid alphabet drawing on Blackletter, Arabic calligraphy, Egyptian hieroglyphics, and Native American symbolism — has made him one of the most distinctive voices to emerge from the street art tradition. What began on the walls of South Central Los Angeles has since moved into museums and major collections worldwide, his dense, hieroglyphic compositions occupying a space between graffiti, typography, and abstraction.

Say My Name, So You Can See Me plays directly on the artist's own name: RETNA took his moniker by removing the letter "I" from "retina," and this 2017 lithograph restores it, an act the artist has described as "putting the 'I' back in his name. The third eye. The 'I' in our eye." Hand-cut and finished with hand-applied diamond dust, the work is signed, named, and numbered from a limited edition of 99.

Available through Creed Gallery, Ascot, for collectors across Berkshire, Surrey, and London.

Diamond dust on silkscreen, Artist's Proof
Artwork size: 100 x 120 cm
Certificate of Authenticity

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