2018. Edition of 150
18” x 24” (46 x 61cm)
7 Color Hand Pulled Screen Print on Curious Metallics Gold Leaf 111C Paper
Signed and numbered in black marker
Embossed
Estevan Oriol is an internationally celebrated professional photographer, director and entrepreneur. Beginning his career as a club bouncer turned tour manager for popular Los Angeles–based rap groups Cypress Hill and House of Pain, Oriol developed his passion for photography while traveling the world. He began documenting life on the road and established a name for himself amid the emerging hip-hop scene.
In 1995, Chicano street photographer Estevan Oriol held a now-famous photo session in which he asked a Latina model with a fierce set of claws to arrange her bling-gilded fingers in the shape of two letters: L and A. Her black, pillowy lips pouting in the background, the image presented a mesmerizing, defiant symbol of West Coast pride.
It reclaimed the typography of the Hollywood sign and it reimagined the Dodgers’ interlocking L.A. symbol. Not since the palm tree, the smoggy freeway or the lonely Hockney swimming pool had one image so succinctly captured the essence of Los Angeles — inaccessible and forbidden until Oriol (with its full blessing) delivered it to us.