Brian Donnely (KAWS)

Brian Donnelly is a well known american street artist turned comercial mechandiser and comercial fine artist. His brightly colored works draw their inspiration from familiar cartoons like Smurfs, Simpsons and Sponge-bob. The KAWS brand aslo has an impressive list of collaborations from designing Kanye Wests last album's cover art, no working closely with japans Nigo of the popular street wear brand "a bathing ape", A big spokes person and collector of KAWS artwork is none other than Pharrell Williams of N.E.R.D/The Neptunes fame. He described Donnely's work as a "truly visual stimulant". In the early 2000's Kaws prefected the skill of marketing "hyper-exclusive" merchandise, selling limited edition vinyl toys,t-shirts and caps. He became "an instant hit with the global art toy-collecting community, especially in Japan, where this genre is well respected and widespread." At the moment his personal fashion label is called Original Fake. Recent solo exhibitions include OriginalFake at the Bape Gallery in Tokyo (2003) where his sculpture "Wonderful World" sold for $400,000.