Tempt One

I first met Tony Quan about 22 years ago after seeing his art around town. He was a student at UCSC where I grew up in Santa Cruz. His stuff would pop up, and, the quality of the work was amazingly clean. Almost as if it'd been painted by a sign maker:

It turned out he was one of the original Los Angeles graffiti artists who'd started back in the early 80's. He belonged to a crew named STN (Stomping The Nation), and had a vast knowledge of graffiti and street art. I finally met him at a party, and, went on to tell me how he was a 'bomber'. In other words , a graffiti artist who's intention was to get his name everywhere.

The more of his work I saw, the more I noticed that, while having great letters and outlines, his 'fill' techniques were like nothing I'd ever seen before. He would employ methods of 'misting' paints together while painting and even go as far as create his own custom colors mixing the paint in the cans. The local kids even tried to copy his stuff, which pale in comparison.

Original


Copy

Tony has since been stricken with an illness that keeps him pretty stationary and doesnt allow him to paint much anymore. While there've been fund raisers and the like for him, he still fights on day to day. He's been working with technological means in which to able him to paint again, and, hopefully soon I'll be able to post some of his new work.