José Parlá's second life after Covid: ‘I have transformed fear into hope and celebration’

José Parlá apologizes over the phone for his slightly broken, hoarse voice. In February 2021, despite being in perfect health and having no pre-existing conditions, he suffered a stroke caused by Covid-19, which left him in a coma for four months. “Covid is mysterious,” the artist explains. “It affects everyone differently; no one can predict how each body will respond.” During his coma, Parlá depended on external oxygen and underwent a tracheotomy. At the time, he was already a renowned artist, personally recommended by rapper Jay-Z to create the mural at the entrance of One World Trade Center (the Freedom Tower), the building erected on the site of the Twin Towers. He was also known for other iconic works, such as Diary of Brooklyn at the Barclays Center.

Doctors were not optimistic about his recovery, fearing he would never walk again. Yet, in just six months, after intensive rehabilitation, Parlá regained his voice, mobility, and memory. Since then, his paintings have taken on greater depth. Today, his work is featured at the Pérez Art Museum in Miami, where his exhibition Homecoming was a highlight of Art Basel Miami Beach. His art is also showcased at the Brooklyn Museum in New York as part of the group exhibition Brooklyn Abstraction: Four Artists, Four Walls.

Question. Your experience during the pandemic was very intense. What was it like to wake up from a coma?

Answer. During the coma, I was dreaming and when I woke up, I was living that other reality. I was convinced that I owned many hotels around the world and that I had been kidnapped, along with my brother, in Hong Kong. The psychologist told my brother not to tell me what the reality was because I needed time to rehabilitate myself. My memory was very bad, and there are memories that I know I have lost forever. My lungs had no oxygen, I was connected to a machine and had a tracheotomy. Being during the pandemic, my recovery was also difficult. I couldn’t see anyone’s face. I didn’t see my doctors’ faces until a year had passed. What’s more, visits to the hospital were not allowed, and they only let my brother in, dressed in a doctor’s outfit. It was all very surreal. They had told my brother that I would never paint or walk again. My hands were severely atrophied, and in extreme pain. I had to take many pills. After leaving the hospital, I spent a year doing therapy at home, and it took me almost a year to breathe normally again.

Q. And how did you get back to painting?

A. Music saved me. They brought me a record player and vinyl records, and with music, I began to recover many memories. Music connected me spiritually with the memories of my parents, of my childhood, of Cuban culture, of growing up in Puerto Rico… and it gave me hope to enjoy life. After connecting with who I was and am, I had a lot of light. Then they began to bring me drawing materials; watercolors, paper. With music, I began to paint landscapes with watercolors. Art is a type of medicine. I painted mycelium, the communication network between roots, which is what scientists call the internet of natural earth. If a tree is sick, the mycelium knows it and is able to collect nutrients from a healthy tree. The mycelium represented my community, my family and friends who supported me during that time when I was sick. The drawings I made in the hospital were transformed into the cycles series that can now be seen at the Brooklyn Museum.

Q. How has your work changed since you came out of the coma?

A. My murals have a different energy and the paintings have changed visually, the themes are different. On November 14, the exhibition Homecoming opened at the Pérez Art Museum in Miami with paintings that show this change, starting with the pandemic as a turning point. Because it didn’t just affect me, it also changed politics and society. More than 20 million people died and almost no one talks about it anymore. For example, there is one work titled Breathing. For me, breathing has become a universal language, we all breathe and that unites us. But we also take it for granted, and I still have trouble breathing today. I speak about my experience as a Covid survivor from what I know, which is painting. The Homecoming exhibition is a way of returning home after having seen the world and almost dying.

Q. How did you become interested in painting?

A. My mother is a poet and an illustrator, and my father studied film in Cuba, so my parents have always been in touch with art. They both wrote in cursive, and that’s how I became interested in calligraphy, and then in street art. We lived in Puerto Rico as a child, and I was also influenced by seeing our neighbors, who were architects, draw. Back in Miami, I was very interested in art history, and my brother and I would sneak into an art school near our house to see what they were doing. I had many artist mentors and a very good relationship with my teachers. My art teacher, Judith Motta, who is now 90 years old, came to see my exhibition at the Pérez Museum. Dr. Mel Alexenberg also helped me a lot.

Q. Was it difficult for you to devote yourself completely to painting?

A. I started very early. At 15, I won a scholarship through the Scholastic Art Awards system to study art in Savannah, and at 17 or 18, I was already finishing school. When I returned to Miami, I had my first art workshop at the Art Center of South Florida. When Hurricane Andrew destroyed the city, I moved to Atlanta and opened my second studio. After my father’s death, I felt that I had to go to New York to continue my career as an artist. In just one year, I made many friends and was invited to exhibit in Japan, England, Hong Kong, Australia... At that time, there was a movement of connections between artists that made everything very easy.

Q. What projects are you working on now?

A. Last month, a public library opened in Queens, New York — the Far Rockaway Library, which I collaborated on with the architectural firm Snøhetta. It was a very special project. And now I am working for the Pola Museum of Art in Japan.

Q. What is your biggest motivation now?

A. I’m no longer afraid of death, one feels a huge gratitude for being alive. How long will I be breathing? What can I do with all this light that I carry inside? I want to do things that can give the world a lot of hope, I have transformed fear into hope and celebration.

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