Better knowing

KAWS is the pseudonym of Brian Donnelly, an American graffiti artist and designer. He was born in 1974 in New Jersey. As a teenager, he came up with the KAWS tag, the signature he puts on his graffiti. The word KAWS doesn’t mean anything. He chose it purely because he thought the letters formed a nice graphic image.

In the nineties, KAWS worked as an illustrator at Disney. At night, he would make graffiti parodies of famous advertisements on billboards and bus shelters using his spray cans. The urban artist became known for his street art and also began to create three-dimensional fantasy figures.

His fame exploded in 1999 when his character Companion was brought to life as a toy. The Companion vinyl figure is based on Mickey Mouse. The stylized Mickey by KAWS has a more fluid, melancholic appearance than the original. The 500 art toys instantly sold out. Companion took on a life of its own in all sorts of sizes, colours and forms.

Other characters, such as The Simpsons, Snoopy and Tweety are also recreated with the KAWS signature: two X’s instead of eyes and the head in the shape of the crossed bones of the pirate flag. Large collaborations with, among others, Dior, Louis Vuitton, Alicia Keys and Jay-Z followed.

KAWS says his work does not intend to convey a message: “Everyone has their own background and everyone makes something out of the work that they see, or want to see. I’m not trying to reach certain people or convey a message. I have no control over that and I wouldn’t want to either. It would be terrible if everyone thought the same thing about my work.”