KAWS (American, born 1974) is a well-known designer of toys and limited edition clothing. He was born Brian Donnelly in Jersey City, NJ. KAWS grew up in New Jersey and became interested in graffiti in elementary school, where he spent a lot of time copying graffiti images on paper. His first influences were neighborhood kids who painted graffiti images on walls in his community. As he grew older, his influences came from traditional life painters, such as Gerhard Richter (German, b. 1932), Klaus Oldenberg (Swedish, b. 1929), and Chuck Close (American, b. 1940).

KAWS' career began as a graffiti artist in New York, NY, in the early 1990s. His paintings could be seen on billboards, bus stops, and in phone booths. He earned his BFA from the School of Visual Arts in New York. Immediately after graduating in 1996, KAWS began working as a freelance artist for Disney, designing animated backgrounds. Among his best-known works are his contributions to 101 Dalmations, Daria and Doug. Once KAWS gained popularity, his graffiti ads became highly sought after. He traveled extensively and worked in Paris, London, Germany and Japan. In 1998, he received the Pernod Liquid Art Award, which provides grants to new artists.

In the late 1990s, KAWS began designing and producing limited edition toys. These gained international popularity, especially in Japan. He also began collaborating on various toys, including with Nigo (Japanese, b. 1970) for A Bathing Ape. Other popular collaborative works by KAWS include his redesign of Mickey Mouse, the Michelin Man and SpongeBob SquarePants. Solo exhibitions of the artist's work have been held at the Aldrich Museum of Contemporary Art in Ridgefield, CT, the Harris Museum in Preston, UK, Parco Gallery in Tokyo, Japan, and City Gallery Chastain in Atlanta, GA. His solo exhibition OriginalFake at Bape Gallery in Tokyo, Japan, featured a sculpture titled Wonderful World that sold for $400,000. KAWS' traveling exhibition Beautiful Losers toured Europe and the United States and was also shown at the High Museum of Art in Atlanta, GA. The artist currently lives and works in Brooklyn, NY.

Felipe Pantone is from Valencia, Spain. His repertoire ranges from graffiti to kinetic art. His art - with the exception of his graffiti - visually represents information flows and renders them in all their hyperactive glory. Felipe Pantone collaborated with URBAN NATION in 2016 for Project M/9. Sharp contrasts, varying textures, effective colors, very technological vocabulary: Pantone loves to engage the viewer with kinetic art that feels like a multi-layered artistic interpretation of binary mundanity.

Paintings, objects and prints: All share a style made up of selected elements that differ in color and texture. Thanks to the carefully crafted visual elements and meticulous attention to detail in his works, the viewer gets a sense of the art education Pantone has enjoyed. Felipe Pantone's art transcends time and space and opens the horizon. It is difficult to escape from it.

Elena's work is strange, to say the least. She makes mixed media works by combining acrylic paintings and objects in front of them that give a whole new meaning to what is depicted on the canvases behind them. It's strange to see a perfectly painted subject seemingly pulled into ridicule by placing large toothbrushes or inflatable dolls in front of it. But this is Steiner's style of expression, and it's an aggressive way of showing it.

What fascinates us most is how Elena manages to make her works as glamorous as they are, even though she seems to be mocking them. Steiner didn't want her work to have too much in common with something that can literally be found in every living room. Her art needed its own identity.

Elena Steiner's works may at times seem humorous, even juvenile. But don't be fooled, because she knows exactly what she is doing. One fact that will never change is that audiences love controversy, because it fascinates them in a way that few things can. And in that regard, Steiner delivers admirably. But she doesn't do it in a grotesque, attention-seeking way that some artists before her have dabbled in - she does it elegantly, confidently and courageously.

New York-based artist Daniel Arsham straddles the line between art, architecture, and performance. Architecture is a predominant theme in his work: Environments with eroded walls and staircases leading into the void, landscapes where nature overrides structures, and a general sense of playfulness in existing architecture. Arsham makes architecture do things it shouldn't, looking to everyday experience for ways to confound and thwart our expectations of space and form.

Simple but paradoxical gestures dominate his sculptural work: a façade that seems to undulate in the wind, a figure wrapped in the surface of a wall, a contemporary object cast in volcanic ash as if found at a future archaeological site. Structural experimentation, historical investigation, and satirical wit combine in Arsham's constant interrogation of the real and the imaginary.

Banksy is a pseudonymous English street artist, political activist, and film director whose real name and identity remain unconfirmed and subject to speculation. His satirical street art and subversive epigrams have been active since the 1990s. They combine dark humor with graffiti executed in a distinctive stenciling technique. His works of political and social commentary can be seen on streets, walls and bridges around the world.

Banksy's work originated in the underground scene of Bristol, where artists and musicians collaborated. Banksy says he was inspired by 3D, a graffiti artist and founding member of the music group Massive Attack. Banksy exhibits his art on publicly visible surfaces such as walls and self-made props. Banksy no longer sells photographs or reproductions of his street graffiti, but his public "installations" are regularly resold, often even removing the wall on which they were painted.

Much of his work can be classified as temporary art. A small number of Banksy's works are officially, but not publicly, sold through an agency Banksy founded called Pest Control. Banksy's documentary Exit Through the Gift Shop (2010) premiered at the 2010 Sundance Film Festival, for which he was nominated for an Academy Award in the Best Documentary category in January 2011. In 2014, he was named Person of the Year at the 2014 Webby Awards.

BAEL is a UK based artist whose work is an often haunting yet beautiful visualization of the female form. After solo and group exhibitions throughout the UK and Europe, his work has found its own place and a dedicated, international following.

With influences from Austrian Expressionism, Art Nouveau and Japanese Anime, Bael's works have a truly unique, distinctive style: "My work is about capturing human emotion and form with a sense of simplicity, expressing something complex in as few words as possible."

Keen observation, humor and realism collide in Paco Pomet's deliciously biting reflections on the human condition. Pop references and bright colors bring social commentary to fictional historical scenes, underscoring the timeless nature of our efforts and concerns. The artist explains, "I've always thought that themes have remained the same over the centuries and that human aspirations, hopes and chimeras are cyclical."

Pomet earned a BFA degree from the University of Granada, Spain, before continuing his studies at the School of Visual Arts in New York. Fascinated by the technological developments of the early 20th century, Pomet sees the dialogue between photography and painting as essential to his work. Series such as the Muppets or Sesame Street and painters such as Mark Tansey and René Magritte have also had an influence on his visual language.

In addition to numerous group exhibitions in Spain and the U.S., Pomet's work has also been featured at the Beijing International Art Biennale, where he received an Award for Excellence in 2010, and at the Banksy-curated Dismaland Bemusement Park in 2015. An individual retrospective was shown the same year at the Baker Museum in Florida. Paintings by the artist are in various public collections in Spain, including the Ministry of Cultural Affairs and the IVAM (Institute of Modern Art in Valencia).

Mason Storm was born in London, Great Britain. He never attended a "normal" art school. His artistic training began when he was about 12 or 13 years old. One night when he was visiting the local youth center, his judo class was cancelled, so he went to the art class his friend was teaching. For about 15 years, he walked in and out every night.

The teachers who taught there at the time were students who supplemented their stipend by working at the center while creating their own works. After graduating from the Royal Academy of Arts, the Royal College of Arts and Central St. Martins, they became leaders in the contemporary art world in the United Kingdom.

Art has always remained his passion, but Mason put it aside while he embarked on a career that was very far from the world of art. He can't divulge all the details of his career path, but here are the most important stages: Judo/self-defense instructor, freelance security contractor, security consultant/freelance intelligence analyst, journalist specializing in intelligence/espionage/terrorism, law school graduate, attorney.

As a diversion, Mason took up sculpture and was asked to participate in an exhibition. From there, he gradually returned to art. It is far more entertaining than his earlier activities.

Mason's work is considered controversial and provocative, but he never tries to be controversial just for the sake of it; there is always a reason for his work.

Mason is probably best known for his mask. It has become a trademark that hides his identity while giving him an air of mystique that helps him with publicity and public relations. He started wearing it when he announced in 2010 that he would unveil the face of the artist Banksy in an oil painting. The whole campaign was nothing more than a big marketing ploy, and it worked.

The supposed unveiling of Banksy earned him a lot of negative publicity and occasional death threats. Nothing he hadn't encountered many times in his previous life, but he knew that remaining anonymous would anger Banksy's followers even more. Secondly, he has met and dealt with some extremely dangerous men in his career so far. There is no risk to his safety, but he would prefer that the two worlds never collide. Besides, he occasionally works as a freelancer, and it's better for him to remain hidden, so to speak. So, apart from its marketing potential, the mask offers him the opportunity to stay hidden.

Austrian-based Nemoland Award winner Florian Satzinger was a student of the late Disney, MGM and Hanna-Barbera animator and animation director Ken Southworth, who greatly influenced him.

Satzinger trained at the Vancouver Institute of Media Arts in British Columbia, Canada, and the Faculty of Arts and Creative Industries, Middlesex University London. He also studied at the Faculty of Arts and Creative Industries, Middlesex University London.

He has worked as a character designer and visual development artist for clients including Warner Bros, Disney, ReelFX and The Zanuck Company. Satzinger is currently developing an all-new (as yet untitled) Donald Duck comic album with French Disney writer Denis-Pierre Filippi ("Disney's Mickey") and developing his own IPs under the umbrella brands "DUCKLAND" and "PAPERWALKER".

Florian Satzinger is a member of the Los Angeles-based Creative Talent Network, a community for the world's leading creators of traditional and digital animation.

Born in Vienna in 1982, sculptor Julia Hanzl comes from a family of artists. She graduated from the University of Vienna and also studied several semesters at the University of Applied Arts in the ceramics department. However, she taught herself her technical knowledge about sculpture making primarily self-taught, with the help of videos and books by well-known figurative sculptors, as well as anatomy books.

She is known for her ceramics, mixed-media sculptures, porcelain and bronze editions, and her ceramic sculptures in conjunction with taxidermy. Many of her sculptures depict human-animal hybrids that embody the complexity of human emotion and behavior and can be understood as psychological portraits.

The artist uses her sculptures like a second language that allows her to address themes, to address them without words, and thus to make taboo areas accessible to viewers.

Central motifs in her works are death, sexuality and perception - perception of other people, but also her own perception as an artist. Accordingly, her sculptures are often also self-portraits, in which the goal is to want to understand relationships and motivations of people and to observe and question oneself in this process.

In this respect, the sculptures are a means to an end, inviting the viewer to also engage in this process Her usual working method is to produce solid sculptures on metal armatures, starting from paper sketches.

Working with clay and metal armatures, especially in the early stages, is an extremely physical process that requires full physical commitment from the artist, and completion often takes several weeks to months. Each ceramic sculpture is hollowed out, leaving only a shell a few centimeters thick of what was previously a compact piece of clay.

The sculptures are then fired in a kiln and the ceramics are then painted with casein paints. In addition to her independent artistic work, she has completed numerous commissions in recent years, such as portraits and the realization of her sculpture "Eve & Eve" in porcelain for the Viennese porcelain manufactory Augarten.

She currently lives and works in Mödling near Vienna.