KAWS American, b. 1974

KAWS, born Brian Donnelly, attended New York City's School of Visual Arts and graduated in 1996. From an early start writing graffiti, the subversive career path of KAWS has been an ongoing transformation of advertisements in bus shelters and phone booths into his own artwork. With a mix of high art and popular culture, his style is very distinctive: cartoonish figures with X-ed-out eyes. These figures, often taken from recognizable animated characters, are treated in a manner at once playful and melancholic.

A painstaking merge of street art aesthetics with traditionally executed painting and sculpture characterizes KAWS's technique. His work is full of bright colours and clean lines, speaking of influences by Pop Art and modern design. He has reinterpreted many iconic characters, like Mickey Mouse and the Michelin Man, as metaphors for his critique of consumerism and mass media.

KAWS's work gained international attention with an exhibition at Tokyo's Parco Gallery in 2002. Since then, he has been commissioned to create solo exhibitions at other notable institutions, including the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, 2016; High Museum of Art, Atlanta, 2012; and Yorkshire Sculpture Park, 2016. He has featured in important exhibitions at, among others, the Brooklyn Museum, Tate Modern in London, and the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles.

KAWS lives and works in Brooklyn, New York.