KAWS

Brooklyn-based artist and designer working under the name KAWS (Brian Donnelly), with a studio in Williamsburg. Alongside painting, sculpture, and vinyl figures, the practice has produced limited-edition furniture, including a 2018 seating collaboration with Brazilian design duo Campana Brothers, presented by Friedman Benda gallery at Design Miami. Born in Jersey City in 1974, Donnelly is a graduate of the School of Visual Arts in New York and began his career painting over advertising on New York City billboards, bus stops, and phone booths in the early 1990s before producing limited-edition vinyl toys from the late 1990s onward. His Williamsburg studio, a converted warehouse, was renovated by Tokyo-based architect Masamichi Katayama. The Campana Brothers collaboration paired metal-framed chairs and sofas with dozens of his soft-toy Companion figures sewn together as upholstery.