Angel Ortiz's street art takes center stage at Chase Contemporary Gallery in SoHo

NEW YORK - He's the most famous artist you've never heard about – until now. 

After 45 years of working in the industry, New York native Angel Ortiz’s famous street art is finally selling out and is now on display at the Chase Contemporary Gallery in SoHo.  

New York in the 1980s was brimming with breakdancers and graffiti, some of it created by a 14-year-old Puerto Rican Angel Ortiz, who used the streets of Lower Manhattan as his canvas. 

It was the legendary street artist Keith Haring who discovered Ortiz and collaborated. Haring would create the structure of the piece; Ortiz would detail it with his signature geometric patterns.  

"I stood on the sidelines, you know what I'm saying? He got all the credit," Ortiz said.  

It didn't upset the teenager, nicknamed "LA II," who was thrilled to just be a part of the art scene that put him and his abstract art in front of Andy Warhol, Madonna, and Michael Jackson. But the signature style he helped create was automatically interpreted as the work of Haring. That changed with his new comeback collections that sold out in London in 2022.  

"It's like the spray-painting and the markers, and it's New York," Ortiz said.  

"Ode to New York" is on exhibition at the Chase Contemporary Gallery in SoHo. And Ortiz is proud, as a Puerto Rican and life-long New Yorker, to represent a community that's been historically underrepresented in the art world.  

"Being Latino, we got to work double hard," Ortiz added. "From the street artist to the galleries, from the galleries to the museums from the museums to the auction houses. And I just want the Spanish community to let them know, I'm here." 

Ortiz's artwork can be found in major museums including the MOMA, Whitney, and Guggenheim. It'll be at the Chase Contemporary Galley until June 18.