José Parlá (born 1973 in Miami, Florida), is a Brooklyn-based contemporary artist whose work has been described as "lying between the boundary of abstraction and calligraphy.

[2][3] Parlá constructs his paintings improvisationally by layering materials, saying "I’m really interested in the way our lives are built up out of memory and history, and how we reflect that in our surroundings.

The temptation to call Parlá a 'post-graffiti’ painter is great but I'd prefer we recognize him as a historical landscape painter even though his historical landscape is made of concrete, wood and wallboard and his 'histories' derive from personal memories and from events buried and embedded in the gorgeous erosions and ruination time and weather will deposit on your average urban walls.

The paintings titled The Names that Live But Sometimes Fade While Time Flies and The Bridge although abstract in nature- are filled with stories of different artists, which Parlá pays homage to through his calligraphic marks and gestures.

The project was undertaken for the Havana Biennale, for which JR and Parlá photographed and recorded 25 senior citizens who had lived through the Cuban revolution.

In 2013, Parlá completed a piece titled Nature of Language at the North Carolina State University's Hunt Library designed by Snøhetta in Raleigh.

The artist describes the piece here, "Although illegible at first sight, the juxtaposed characters, gestures, hieroglyphs, and words become readable through feeling, as it is my hope that the work evokes the language of your own inner voice of your own history.

I found inspiration in the essence of words and their combined power, however abstract within a landscape of gestural forms and characters that serve as carriers of meaning.

Visitors to the lobby of One World Trade Centre is greeted by Parlá's colorful 90 ft mural titled ONE: Union of the Senses which stands as a symbol of diversity.

In 2024, the Pérez Art Museum Miami organized José Parlá: Homecoming, the artist's first solo exhibition in his South Florida hometown presenting a site-specific mural and a series of never shown large-scale paintings.

The exhibition seeks to replicate Parlá's studio space with Cuban music albums, objects, furniture, paint, and myriad of other daily materials.