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Arts & Entertainment

Graffiti Legend Infuses Art and Personal History in Sunset Marquis Exhibit

New York native Cope2 opens his first solo exhibition in Los Angeles at Weho's Maximillian Gallery on Saturday.

A guilty-looking boy holds a spray can in the corner of a canvas bursting to life with tags and paint drops.

World-renowned graffiti artist Cope2, standing before his work in Maximillian Gallery in West Hollywood, moves his hand over the surface. “This is what we did back in the [New York] subway cars; we tagged ‘em up,” he says. 

And the boy in the photograph? A 13-year-old version of himself. 

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The piece, entitled Back in the Dayz, is part of Cope2’s (real name Fernando Carlos) first solo exhibition of graffiti art in Los Angeles, which opened Saturday night at the  hotel.  

The title of the exhibition, Authentic, channels the raw feeling of Cope2’s style. His art is infused with history and emotion, a swirl of survival on the streets of New York, selling drugs to make ends meet and serving jail time.

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He started out as a kid tagging subway cars in the Bronx. Thirty years later, Cope2 has made himself into a legend. He is now retired from the streets to focus on graffiti art as his professional career.   

His first foray from the street to the canvas took place in 2000, at the request of an art auction curator.

Cope2 was skeptical at first—he had only ever done canvases on request for friends. Then a pair of his paintings sold for several thousand dollars each.

“That really opened me up,” he said. “I’ve done every job you can think of—housekeeping to construction to security, and it didn’t work anymore. I was tired of it.”

He was backed by his status as a legendary graffiti artist and decades of experience. Now, his paintings sell for thousands of dollars in galleries and at auctions, and he has signed corporate deals with Time Warner and Converse.

His exhibition at the Maximillian Gallery, which runs at the Sunset Marquis through Aug. 17, contains pieces in both his traditional “bubble-drop” style and his more recent experimental work in mixed media and acrylics.

Gallery owner Caradoc, who has collected the work of Cope2 for some time, said free expression makes the work magnetic.

“The colors and the way it makes you feel, and the originality,” Caradoc said. “Cope2 is one of the legendary graffiti artists.” 

East Hollywood resident Charlene Garcia showed up at the gallery Saturday night simply to get an autograph for her boyfriend, a fan who had to work that night.

But in the moment, the photographer was moved. She stepped closer to a work titled Crisis of the Ghetto, a splay of teal and red layered tags of “Mom” and “KD God.”

The choice of color and the complexity bundled into flowing expression left Garcia in awe. “I want to get out my sketchbook and draw something,” she said.

For Jerry Guzman, 17, an hour-long drive from South Orange County to see the show with his siblings was well worth it.

The aspiring graffiti artist held a black sketchbook in his hand and gazed at the canvases on the walls. He later got an autograph.

“It’s just crazy,” said Guzman, who had familiarized himself closely with Cope’s work as a source of inspiration. “I like his style.”

Asked whether he puts his work on canvas, Guzman said with a smile, “Not yet.”

“He will after this,” his brother Victor Silva, 30, chimed in.

Other gallery visitors Saturday were tied into Cope2’s history. Will Robertson, founder of the Don Dante T-shirt line, has known the artist personally for about five years and collaborated with him on clothing designs and a video series.

But Robertson has known of Cope2’s work for much longer. Growing up in the Bronx, Robertson remembers seeing Cope2’s tagging work all over the subway trains he rode as a kid. The images stuck in his head.

Robertson said it seemed as though he had traveled full-circle. “It’s funny [being here], sort of iconic,” he said. 

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