Interview by Jimon

1- You were born in Miami, when did you move to New York and why?
Miami is my hometown and after many years of traveling between the two cities and painting in both, since the late 80s, I moved to the Bronx, New York in 1998.  I relocated to Brooklyn in 2000.  My decision to paint in New York was due to the direction I was taking in my work at the time.  Influenced by the energy, the people and access to a certain kind of geography that was not available in Miami, the city informed me how I developed my language as a painter.  New York also became my bridge to the world.  Still I go back to Miami often.  I never forget my roots.

2- How did you acquire your style?
What I do is not about a particular style.  What I do in art is rooted in some related genres of art, some of which I continue to have a dialogue with from a historical perspective set in the present.  Those genres include Subway Art, Abstract Expressionism, Nouveau Realism, and others like the Situationists, and Flux movements.  Some of the artists work I have a visual dialog with are Aaron Siskind, Joan Mitchell, Cy Twombly, Brion Gysin, Dongançy, Mimmo Rotella, Jacques Villaglé, Robert Raushenberg, Kase 2, Jean Michel-Basquiat, Gerhard Richter, Jim Dine, Clifford Still, Jackson Pollock, and Louise Bourgeois.

3- What has the most influence on your work?
Breathing.

4- Who is your favorite artist?
Louise Bourgeois.

5-Some of your pieces seem to be very time consuming.  What is the longest you have spent on one painting?
The longest I have spent on a painting, on and off, is seven years.

6-What makes you decide a painting is done?
When I go into a painting I already know what I want to achieve and when I see, I have reached that vision, I know it is done.

7-What was the turning point for José Parlá’s work?
The turning point for me was when my father passed away in 1998 and I moved to New York.

8-Are the colors in your art usually indicative of your state of mind?
It is important to me that the viewer has an indication through a title I have given the artwork, what the artwork is about.  It is equally as important that the viewer has time with the work and has a free interpretation without my mood being present.  That being said, the color pallet in any particular work I make can be indicative of my mood, but the works are not only about an expression, they are also reminiscent of a memory, a reflection, or of a place I have visited.

9-Do politics affect your work?
Politics affect the entire globe and my work as well.

10-Do you listen to music while creating?  If yes what genre?
Sometimes I listen to only one record for days and days and then I change it and listen to a mix of music from all over the world.  Rumba and Guaguanco music are among my favorites to play while painting. I listen to basically anything that has a good baseline, melody, and rhythm.  I’m open.

11-Best advice you ever received?
“Son, Fuck the Establishment.”