Biography
Miles MacGregor, known as El Mac, is a self-taught artist born in 1980 in Los Angeles. Introduced to graffiti as a teenager, he was drawn more to the process of spray painting than to lettering. From 1999, he began painting monumental portraits in public spaces across the American Southwest, depicting friends and anonymous Mexican labourers. His work draws equally on the Chicano culture of Los Angeles and on European masters of chiaroscuro, particularly Caravaggio and Michelangelo.
His signature technique relies on repeating contour lines applied with an aerosol cap that concentrates pigment along the edges, producing a hypnotic, rippling effect across the wall's surface. The result gives faces a luminous presence that hovers between photorealism and decorative art, recalling Klimt and Mucha. He frequently collaborates with Retna, who contributes lettering and pattern backgrounds to his portrait murals.
Based in Los Angeles, the artist has been commissioned to paint in the United States, Mexico, Denmark, Sweden, South Korea, Belgium, Italy, France, Germany, Vietnam and Cuba. His work was the subject of a PBS SoCal documentary and a solo exhibition, "Aerosol Exalted," at Colorado College's Fine Arts Center.
His signature technique relies on repeating contour lines applied with an aerosol cap that concentrates pigment along the edges, producing a hypnotic, rippling effect across the wall's surface. The result gives faces a luminous presence that hovers between photorealism and decorative art, recalling Klimt and Mucha. He frequently collaborates with Retna, who contributes lettering and pattern backgrounds to his portrait murals.
Based in Los Angeles, the artist has been commissioned to paint in the United States, Mexico, Denmark, Sweden, South Korea, Belgium, Italy, France, Germany, Vietnam and Cuba. His work was the subject of a PBS SoCal documentary and a solo exhibition, "Aerosol Exalted," at Colorado College's Fine Arts Center.
The site contains a total of 1 artworks by El Mac in 1 countries.
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