Shoe Boxing

Dominican-born John Andrew Parello alias JonOne was born in New York in 1963. A child of Harlem, he cut his teeth bombing the trains and walls of his neighborhood from the age of seventeen. Quickly and completely self-taught, he made the transition from urban medium to canvas, creating paintings influenced by his own life: hip hop, the street and the subway, reproducing the vision of a graffitied train and its drips. JonOne's practice is characterized by "freestyle", a watchword that imposes no limits, making each of his canvases the result of an abstract improvisation. His first solo exhibition, entitled "Graffitism", took place in 1990 at Galerie Gleditsch 45 in Berlin, Germany. This was followed by group and solo exhibitions all over the world (Tokyo, Monaco, Paris, Geneva, New York, Hong Kong, Brussels...), making JonOne a major artist on the contemporary urban scene.