What is RETNA? That's a question people ask. I hear it at shows, in interviews. They want me to explain what the alphabet means, where it comes from. The truth is simpler than they think. The symbols came from everywhere — Arabic script I saw growing up in LA, Egyptian marks from books, Gothic letters on old records, Chicano writing on the walls of my neighborhood. I took pieces of all of it and made something that belongs to me. To nobody else. That's the point. The work you see in the image — those white sculptures, the ones that look like three-dimensional letters come to life — that's the alphabet leaving the wall and entering the room. You can walk around it, see it from every side. The meaning doesn't change. It's not supposed to be decoded. It's supposed to be experienced. The essence of RETNA isn't in what the letters say. It's in how they make you feel when you stand in front of them.
