KAWS (real name Brian Donnelly) manifested himself for the first time in the early 90s painting walls and writing graffiti in and around Jersey and New York. In the mid 90s, he began appropriating advertisements from bus stop shelters and phone booths in New York and painting a graphic, cartoon-like skull-and-crossbones image into them (known as 'ad disruptions').

KAWS’ recent work has been influenced by iconic characters from modern pop culture, such as Mickey Mouse, The Michelin Man and The Simpsons, treading the fine line between art, commerce, cartoons, and commercials. His work manifests itself in the form of large-scale paintings, smaller 'Product Paintings’, sculptures, vinyl toys, editioned prints and of course ad disruption works.

The first solo museum exhibition of the work of KAWS opened in June 2010 at The Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum. He has recently exhibited at Galerie Perrotin in Paris, and Galeria Javier Lopez in Madrid and been included in group exhibitions at the MOCA, Torrrance Art Museum, Orange County Museum of Art, Yerba Buena Arts Center, San Francisco, and the Contemporary Arts Center, Cincinnati. KAWS has had four monographs published about his work, the most recent in 2010 by Rizzoli.