DTLA Book Cover Artists
DTLA Book 2019:
Leticia Maldonado, a neon artist
Inspired by the glowing signs of Los Angeles and Las Vegas, Leticia “Tiza” Maldonado is part of a new-wave group of artists taking the art of neon to the next level.
The blinking, hypnotic history of neon in Los Angeles begins with the convergence of consumerism and art in the 1920s, booms through the golden age of new advertising in the 1930s, falls out of favor as an emblem of urban decay in the 1960s and ’70s, and resurfaces, thanks to the Museum of Neon Art, in the 1980s. In the future, however, it might look something like the organic forms of Leticia Maldonado. The 38-year-old artist grew up in Las Vegas, where many evenings, she sat in the car with her stepfather, waiting for her mother, a showgirl known as Gypsy Louise, to come off her shift at the Flamingo Hotel...
DTLA Book 2018:
Peter Greco, a "calligraffiti" artist
Peter Greco combines classical calligraphy with street art to create his signature “calligraffiti” works, generating some of DTLA’s most unforgettable public art.
Greco has infiltrated visual culture with his typographic projects. He devised the iconic D.A.R.E. (Drug Abuse Resistance Education) logo; lettering for Beach Boys and Santana albums; and the typographic identity for iconic movie posters such as Splash, Blazing Saddles, Brazil and The Little Mermaid.
DTLA Book 2017:
Tommii Lim, an artist-photographer-director
Best known for his large-scale black-and-white paintings, artist-photographer-director Tommii Lim is DTLA’s answer to the modern Renaissance man, doing it all with bold simplicity.
For Lim, DTLA is the nexus of simple living and creative inspiration. The L.A. native took up residence on Spring Street in 2008, before it became the hub of Downtown nightlife. “I loved it right away,” says Lim. “It was a little bit more raw then. I met all different sorts of people—a lot of them are my friends to this day.”