KAWS

These new paintings have a distinctly textured appearance, the result of a hand-painted technique that mimics the effects of spray paint and calls to mind the Pointillism of the late nineteenth century. At the same time, its effect harkens back to KAWS’s earliest days as a graffiti artist tagging the walls and billboards of New York City.

Contrasting the spontaneity of the gesture with the steadiness of his lines, the paintings begin with an underwash of monochrome color, the imagery gradually building up layer by layer. While the compositions are meticulously laid out in advance, the stippled flecks of paint that dot the canvases both lend the works their mottled surfaces and provide an element of chance. Meanwhile, the precise black lines add a sense of depth and articulation to each individual component. The process has its roots in his recent series of General Mills cereal box paintings, developed as a way to convey texture and crunch—examples of which are currently on view at The Andy Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh and the Fondation Louis Vuitton in Paris.

These new paintings also continue KAWS’s longstanding exploration into image layering. In some paintings, various body parts, such as bones, gloved hands, shoes, or entire skeletal figures overlap, thereby collapsing imagery into complex compositions. This is particularly apparent in his paintings of a skeletonized COMPANION—an iteration of a graphic he originally used on clothing designs in the mid-2000’s—who is covered by vestiges of other figures. Using this character as a contemporary memento mori, these recurring skeletal motifs further the artist’s evocations of death, initially made manifest throughout his oeuvre by the quintessential X’d-out eyes of his characters, while the graphic quality of the skeleton itself recalls Andy Warhol’s Skull paintings. Yet, when juxtaposed against the near neon colors that permeate each painting, these meditations on mortality become more nuanced, suggesting that the boundaries between vitality and decay are fluid. Death becomes more than just an endpoint. Instead, it is a continuous presence woven into the vibrancy of life.

In other paintings throughout the exhibition, KAWS creates a painting-within-a-painting in which his character CHUM holds up canvases to form a dual set of pictorial iconographies and meanings, creating a unique approach to the technique of mise en abyme that has permeated art history. These motifs are in part self-referential, as many of the paintings CHUM holds echo KAWS’s own prior works exhibited in 2021 in his exhibition SPOKE TO SOON. This is particularly evident in works such as PEELING BACK, where the rolling smog evokes the noxious air swirling in NEW RIVALS (2021), or DAY BY DAY, where hands precariously hang onto a ledge for dear life, much as they did in OLD FRIENDS ARE HARD TO BURY (2021). As in SPOKE TOO SOON, CHUM can be interpreted to act as an alter ego for the artist. By reinterpreting his earlier works, KAWS furthers his lexicon, revisiting narrative elements and emotional vulnerabilities that were groundbreaking within the original paintings. Water as a thematic element remains an important tool throughout both bodies of work. Characters are often depicted floating, drowning, rising, or hanging over water. This motif amplifies a sense of vulnerability, evoking both physical and emotional struggle as the figures navigate forces beyond their control. Water itself has played a critical role in art history, used by the Romantics to convey emotional tumult and the sublime; by the Impressionists to evoke the transient qualities of nature; or by the Surrealists to allude to the subconscious mind.

In these new works, KAWS deftly balances innovation with a return to his origins, offering a renewed perspective on his oeuvre while staying deeply connected to the themes that have defined his career.