David Flores, a LA-based artist who’s known for a unique style that embellishes another work of art rather than painting over it, once again put his stamp on the city walls of Los Angeles. With the monthly event known as the Downtown Art Walk taking place this past Thursday, Flores debuted a large-wall piece that featured one of the most iconic Hollywood screen personas – James Dean. Using the image (taken by photographer Phil Stern) featured in the film Forever Young, Flores took an image synonymous with Dean’s short-lived acting career and reworked it from the ground up using nothing but spray cans. However, in classic Flores’ style, he added two peace signs on each side of Dean’s facade. As Flores stated, the peace signs are “an offering of peace to everybody who influenced me.”
Adding such an image goes hand in hand with Flores’ work which is known for reworking iconography in a new and different way; thus giving the original image a completely postmodern aesthetic. An example was seen a few months ago when Flores added his stylings over the work of French artist JR. He did not simply erased JR’s contribution to the world of street art. Instead, he layered his colorful renderings over the large scale photographs in such a way that the original piece still kept its essence. The end result was an postmodern mixture of two very different styles which brings us back to Flores’ latest work. For a closer viewing, make sure to check out the work that’s on display at 133 E. 3rd St. in Downtown LA.
More photos of this piece and the modified JR walls after the jump…
