Luis INCA ramos

GRAFF CITY, 1975

March 18 - April 15, 2023

Thomas VanDyke Gallery is pleased to present Graff City, 1975, an exhibition of paintings and street-scene replicas by Luis Inca Ramos. One of the originators of the highly decorative and stylized graffiti art that became virtually ubiquitous in New York City during the 1970s, Ramos now focuses on making extremely precise three-dimensional recreations and paintings of specific places and moments in time. His carefully constructed models of events and locations from his youth reveal readily identifiable streets, subway platforms, rooftops, and intersections, down to the smallest detail, and tell the stories of the local residents. Children throw snowballs under a Merit cigarette billboard near the 4th Ave/9th street subway station on December 22, 1973. Police respond to a crashed stolen car in Bensonhurst during 4th of July weekend, 1977. Luis and his friends steal spray paint from the fully stocked shelves of Lumber Headquarters Hardware in the summer of 1975.

Known by his moniker Inca, the legendary street artist turned fine art painter and sculptor emerged in the mid 1970’s, during a time when graffiti was transforming from ubiquitous tag bombs to elaborate masterpieces. With fellow street writers and graffiti artists of the day, Ramos constantly pushed the boundaries of this evolving form of expression, using spray painted letters to create complex inscriptions, converting blank walls and train cars into eye-catching designs. With cans in hand and the city as their canvas, night time became an opportunity to create and make a statement.

With the enormous impact graffiti art has made on modern society, from cinema, hip-hop, and rap, to fashion, collectibles, and even museums, the extraordinary evolution of this form of expression is often taken for granted. What started as a way for taggers to make themselves known and garner street cred, morphed into a culture all its own, and now has become re-integrated into the mainstream. Ramos has taken his talent from the street to the studio and now uses his skills to produce intricately detailed depictions of his experiences during his time as one of the early street artists of New York City.

Ramos’s diaristic paintings and dioramic street scene replicas recreate key moments in the history of his own artistic development. His canvases with protruding train platforms, window bars that jut out, and other three-dimensional features illustrate specific instants in time. His painstakingly meticulous miniature reproductions offer a captivating look at particular moments in the history of the city and his own experiences. The exacting specificity of elements accurate to the story within each creation are truly fascinating and offer endless details for the viewer to investigate. From period-specific street signs and most wanted posters to distinct graffiti-covered architecture and automobiles, the re-creations become their own worlds to explore.