Born and raised in Los Angeles, California, RETNA is known to be one of the world's most popular graffiti artists whose work and fame have successfully encompassed the worlds of contemporary art and popular culture. He accesses spaces between text-based imagery and abstract, emotive states with his mysterious lines of verse. Drawing from Egyptian, Hebrew, Roman and Arabic calligraphy, RETNA created the unique script through which he has consistently expressed his emotions and experiences in totemic symbologies which, though masked in cyphers, pay homage to the shared and unifying elements of human existence over the course of his artistic career.
For this artist, music is both an inspiration and an inextricable part of his art. His name, RETNA, is inspired by a line from a hit song by the popular 90s hip hop group, Wu-Tang Clan, and his intriguing hieroglyphic paintings are often created to a soundtrack drawn from his wide and eclectic musical tastes. Indeed, his works are often accompanied by ambient or musical sounds, creating a multisensory artistic experience that leads fans to connect deeply with his art. It is no surprise that this prolific artist has collaborated with quite a few musical artists. RETNA’s instantly recognisable abstract visual linguistic style is rooted in a deep fascination and appreciation for art, culture, written language, and music. As the artist himself said during an interview with the Museum of Contemporary Art, "…we're…all one people. We just all grew up in different places..."
