KAWS is an influential artist who has become a pop culture sensation. His artistic endeavors encompass a wide range of mediums, including paintings, sculptures, drawings, and even commercial products like limited-edition toys and apparel. KAWS initially rose to prominence as a graffiti artist on the east coast during the early 1990s, leaving his distinctive tag, "KAWS," on buildings, freight trains, and billboards throughout New York City.
Laura Jean McLaughlin received an MFA in ceramics from West Virginia University. Laura Jean’s work has been exhibited in over one hundred galleries and museums, including the Ogden Museum of Southern Art, the Mobile Museum of Art, the Montgomery Museum of Art, the Ohio Craft Museum, the Carnegie Museum of Art, the Delf Norona Museum, the San Angelo Museum of Fine Art, the Baltimore Institute of Art, and The State Museum of Pennsylvania.
She is a recipient of the Maggie Milono Memorial Award from the Carnegie Museum of Art and three prestigious residencies from Kohler Company in Wisconsin.
Typoe (b. 1983) is a Miami-based mixed media artist whose works range from paintings and murals to larger-than-life sculptural works that can be found in the public realm. His work has been exhibited at the Crystal Bridges Museum, Bentonville, Arkansas, Locust Projects, Miami, FL, Public Art of UH System, Houston, TX, Artis-Naples, Naples, FL, and Faena Art Center, Buenos Aires, Argentina.
www.typoe.com
Artwork by Andy Warhol © The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc. in collaboration with The Art Supply Co., Little Kelpie, Bella’s Army, Signarama.
According to West African Igbo spiritual science, the human soul is composed of four spiritual elements: Chi, Eke, Mmuo, and Onyeuwa. These components exist in a complex cosmology informed destiny, reincarnation, and the rich multidimensionality of every human being. Drawing inspiration from Warhol's use of multiple silkscreens to produce stop-motion-style images, Anatomy of the Human is a manifestation of the multiple spirit bodies that make up the human self.
Mikael Owunna is an award-winning Nigerian American artist and engineer from and based in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Exploring the intersections of visual media with engineering, optics, Blackness, and African cosmologies, his work seeks to elucidate an emancipatory vision of possibility that pushes people beyond all boundaries, restrictions, and frontiers. Owunna’s work has been exhibited across Africa, Asia, Europe, and North America and been collected by institutions such as the Nasher Museum of Art; Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; Equal Justice Initiative; Duke University Pratt School of Engineering; and National Taiwan Museum.
Loveland lives and works in Miami, Florida. He graduated from New World School of the Arts in Miami in 1991 and earned his Bachelor of Fine Arts degree (BFA) from the Maryland Institute College of Art in Baltimore in 1994. He studied and worked in New York for seven years before returning to Miami in 2001. Loveland’s works has been exhibited in many galleries, art fairs, and exhibitions throughout the United States and Europe. His work is also included in many private collections such as the Marty Margulies collection Miami, the Virgin Hotel Chicago collection, as well the permanent collections of the Brooklyn Art Museum, Perez Art Museum Miami, and the Lowe Art Museum at the University of Miami.
www.michaelloveland.com
Yoko Ono (b. 1933) is a New York–based multimedia artist working in performance, instruction, film, installation, music, and writing. A forerunner in conceptual art involving collaboration, audience participation, and social activism since the early 1960s, Ono challenges viewers’ understanding of art and the world around them. Her influence spans many of the key artistic movements of the late 20th century including Fluxus, conceptual art, video art, and feminism. In addition to her work as a visual artist, Ono is also a musical pioneer, both an accomplished singer and songwriter.
Since 1996, Yoko Ono has invited people from around the world to write their personal wishes and tie them to a tree branch as Wish Tree. All the wishes are returned to Ono and continue on in connection with her Imagine Peace Tower, a 2007 installation in Reykjavík, Iceland, dedicated to the memory of her late husband John Lennon. More than a million people have shared their wishes.
