José Parlá

José Parlá (born 1973 in Miami, Florida) is a Cuban-American contemporary artist based in Brooklyn, New York. He began painting on walls in Miami at ten years old, initially signing his work with the nickname "Ease". Parlá received a scholarship to Savannah College of Art & Design at 16 and later studied at Miami Dade Community College and New World School of the Arts. Before establishing his art career, he supported himself by designing album covers and concert fliers for hip-hop artists. Parlá's artistic practice is rooted in a style that merges street language with abstraction and urban realism. His work explores themes of memory, identity, migration, and the passage of time through the visual language of accumulated urban surfaces. He is known for large-scale permanent installations, including "Diary of Brooklyn" (2013) at the Barclays Center and "ONE: Union of the Senses" (2015) in the lobby of One World Trade Center. His work is characterized by palimpsest-like compositions, incorporating layers of paint, collage, plaster, enamel, and ink to create textured surfaces that resemble city walls.