Piece 

This subway car bears the moniker "Stay High 149," a work sprayed on the trains of New York. The tag itself, a declaration of elevated existence, echoes ancient quests for transcendence. Consider the ecstatic states sought in Dionysian rituals or the spiritual heights aspired to by mystics. "High," here, takes on a dual meaning - a streetwise bravado intertwined with an age-old yearning to escape earthly bounds. Notice the halo motif crowning the letters – a symbol of sanctity now repurposed, irreverently, for a graffiti artist’s alias. This appropriation reminds me of the Renaissance painters who borrowed pagan symbols, embedding classical forms with Christian meaning. The impulse remains the same: to imbue the present with the weight of history, to find new vitality in symbols that resonate across time. Thus, in the fleeting moment of a subway ride, we encounter an echo of humanity's eternal search for higher ground.