The artist and designer Brian Donnelly, better known to the world as KAWS, has worked with various fashion brands, produced numerous cult-status toys and auctioned off his artworks at multimillion-dollar price points. But now, the 45-year-old artist has sent his most recognisable sculture, Companion, a slightly off-kilter Mickey Mouse spinoff, into space for its 20th anniversary, topping off his laurels from over the years by taking his work literally out of this world.
The American artist grew up in Jersey City, where he had many opportunities to paint on freight trains and under highways. While it’s known to many that he got his start in the art scene through graffiti, Donnelly reveals, by email, that his first studio of sorts was instead located back at a corner in his childhood bedroom. And as it is with any other workspace or studio he has had, “all were places of comfort and none were taken for granted,” he says. Following years of developing a signature style, his works today riff on famous pop culture characters. His signature motifs, the XX eyes and cauliflower ears, appear across his artworks and are both seen on Companion.
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