KENNY SCHARF

Kenny Scharf (born in Los Angeles, 1958) attended Manhattan's School of Visual Arts and came of age in the 1980s New York downtown art scene alongside his contemporaries Keith Haring and Jean-Michel Basquiat. A painter and performer inhabiting the visual worlds of both street art and popular culture, Scharf's graffiti paintings gained him notoriety and established a vernacular language all his own. Often working with improvisation, he creates playful, gestural pieces that blend stylized motifs with references to the surreal, science fiction, and icons of popular culture. Many of his larger works still adorn New York streets to this day. Scharf was included in the 1985 Whitney Biennial and again in their show "Fast Forward: Painting from the 1980s" in 2017. His work has been exhibited at the Museum of Modern Art, New York; the Hammer Museum in Los Angeles; the Miami Center for the Fine Arts, Florida; and the Queens Museum of Art, New York, among others. Work is held in the permanent collections of The Museum of Modern Art, New York; The Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; The Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam; The Broad Foundation, Los Angeles; and The Jewish Museum, New York, in addition to others worldwide. He currently lives and works in Los Angeles. Courtesy of the artist (@kennyscharf)