You can’t throw the word “steez” around without attributing some of the credit to Mark Paul Deren. Born blind in his left eye, Madsteez — as he’s most notably known — has become a larger than life, abstract living, color-crazed man with a spray can. He lives, breathes and paints steez.
He’s done murals and paintings of a wide variety of stars including Shaquille O’Neill, Bill Cosby and Easy E, as well as some for the World Cup, Breaking Bad, Dennis Hopper — and one in the alley next to my favorite dive bar in HB, Perqs and many more.
And here today, Madsteez is immortalized in celluloid by the magician filmmaker Jamie Heinrich in a new episode of his What Youth series Panther Vision.