Brooklyn-based KAWS is considered one of the most relevant artists of his generation. Within the Pop Art tradition, he has created a prolific body of influential work, which both engages young people with contemporary art and straddles the worlds of art and design to include street art, graphic and product design, paintings, murals and large-scale sculptures.



KAWS developed a passion for popular culture in art and design early in life and studied illustration at the School of Visual Arts in Manhattan in the early 1990s. By then he was already well versed in graffiti, having frequently tagged walls and freight trains with the letters K A W S. KAWS continued developing his visual vocabulary conceiving his soft skull with crossbones and crossed-out eyes, which would become a signature gesture. After college, he worked as a freelancer for animations studios, which further catalysed his appropriation of iconic characters from popular culture and comic books.

