Angel Ortiz is a well known street and graffiti artist born in New York city in 1967. He also uses different tags when signing his street works such as L.A. II or L.A. Rock or L.A. 2. The nickname is short for “Little Angle.”
Price range information: Ortiz has worked with acrylics, oils, ink, and market. Prices range $500 to $4,000.
Ortiz started tagging at the age of 13 years old when he met Keith Haring for the first time. I wrote a little about Haring in my piece about Betty Mbitjana, as I found their styles similar. Its easy to see his influence on the line work of Ortiz. His lines like Harings are flowing with life and movement. The couple were an odd pair as Haring was a gay art school dropout that would pass away from A.I.D.S. in 1990. Ortiz was a young Puerto Rican teen looking for an idol that he ended up finding in Haring. The two were great friends and Haring even referred to him as a younger brother.
In this interview Angel Ortiz tells us about his relationship with Keith Haring.
After the death of Keith Haring, Ortiz had some difficult times dropping out of high school. Ortiz went back to the streets and became a heroin addict serving 8 months in jail.
Ortiz seems to feel he contributed to success of Keith Haring, even working on collaborations but without any financial gain or even recognition for the artist.
Angel Ortiz had his first large showing in New York in 1982 at the Tony Shafrazi gallery.
In this clip we see a show at a gallery given for Angel Ortiz and another street artist named Kidlew. Kidlew is presented first and a brief interview with Angel Ortiz starts 3 minutes into the clip. Artwork is also shown.
L.A. Ortiz and artists like Cool Disco Dan laid the ground work for the street/ graffiti movement that currently exists in the art world.
D
Diattaart Blog 