Born and raised between Manhattan’s West Spanish Harlem and the South Bronx during the height of the civil rights era, Carlos “Mare139” Rodriguez is an accomplished and renowned artist of his generation. Mare is also a respected and celebrated artist and scholar of the golden age of graffiti in New York. He was among the vanguard artists of his time and continues to be recognized as one of the culture’s most prolific, articulat and forward-thinking personalities, whose work has always pushed the boundaries of contemporary urban and modern art. Considered a pioneer of graffiti sculpture, Mare’s work and theories are among the most influential in the genre. At the age of 10, he took notice of the already burgeoning graffiti movement on the streets and subways in his community, and soon after, he and his brother Randy “Kel First” Rodriguez teamed up and began an illustrious 10-year career painting subways with legendary style masters including Dondi White, Crash One, Noc167 and King Kase 2. Considered the elite writers of their day, Mare was the youngest protégé among them. His tutelage and association with them would come to shape his artistic career and his scholarship around the art form and culture.