Kenny Scharf, Artist :: AXIS

Pop Art icon, Kenny Scharf shares ideas behind his stream of consciousness approach to mural painting as well as some new projects on the pipeline. The mural in the video was done in connection to his opening exhibition at the Anonymous Gallery in NYC.

About Kenny Scharf:

Kenny Scharf is an American painter who lives in Brooklyn, New York. Scharf's works consist of popular culture based shows with made up science-related backgrounds. Kenny uses images from the animated cartoons popular during his childhood, such as The Flintstones and The Jetsons. The reason Scharf uses cartoon images in his art work is to bring popular culture into the fine arts. Scharf wants to see how far he can push the line between high and low art. Scharf to this day is making artwork that makes the viewers think about where the line is and how far has the artist pushed it. In 2001, he released a cartoon of his own, "The Groovenians" of which there was only one episode.

Scharf was a key figure in the East Village art scene of the 1980s, with shows at Fun gallery (1981) and Tony Shafrazi (1984), before seeing his work embraced by museums, such as the Whitney, which selected him for the 1985 Whitney Biennial. He did the album covers of The B-52's in the mid-80s. In 1995, Scharf designed a room at the Tunnel nightclub in New York.

Scharf was friends with the graffiti artist Keith Haring and appears in the documentary "The Universe of Keith Haring". In 2004, he appeared in The Nomi Song, a documentary about his friend, opera singer and new wave star Klaus Nomi.