Rod Deal’s photo mosaics are composed of deeply layered images sequenced together to create one massive, profound image. At a distance, the artwork tells a short story; upon closer inspection it takes you through a full journey of the life of the iconic subjects.
Shuttling between the two coastal cities of Miami, Florida and Oakland, California for much of his childhood and adolescence, allowed Rod Deal to witness and examine the African-American experience on bothsides of the map. These experiences built his artist perspective which he has captured while photographing for over 11 years. His work as Photo Editor and Editor-In-Chief at Miami-Dade College’s newspaper solidified his a love for photography and written word. Rod Deal’s current series takes classic rock and hip-hop imagery, filters it through mosaic tiling, and builds the primary image up through smaller ones.
“The pieces are about hip-hop and American Culture. They are put together using the same sampling techniques used in hip-hop. A lot of the pieces sample separate works, in the same manner that hip-hop does to make one new piece of work.” Rod Deal