In the last decade, street-inspired graffiti artwork has slowly begun to stray away from its original home. This often frowned upon style of art, which uses the space on blank city walls as a modern-day art canvas, is now finding a new home, a home off of the streets and into some of the world’s most well renowned and upscale art museums. The best of the best are even selling their work to some high-end art collectors who are paying thousands of dollars for art that only a few years ago was looked down upon.

Here in Atlanta, where graffiti can be found on almost every corner, The High Museum of Art is now home to an exhibit curated by the hugely influential and the greatly respected street artist, KAWS. Born in Jersey City, New Jersey in 1974 with the name of Brian Donnelly, KAWS was a student at the School of Visual Arts in New York where in 1996 he graduated with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in illustration. After graduating, KAWS had a short-lived work career at Disney. While he was there he painted backgrounds as a freelance animator. He also had contributed to the animated series Daria, Doug and 101 Dalmatians.

His art career began as a young aspiring graffiti artist in the late 80’s when he began spray painting freight trains and covering the city walls of New Jersey with his name. He later moved to New York City in the 90’s where he would paint on phone booths, bus shelter ads and even high-rise billboards. At first, his modified ads would be left untouched for several months on end. But once the popularity of KAWS’ work began to rise, the pieces were a hot commodity and were being snatched up all over by his many fans. With all of the marketing hype surrounding the persona of KAWS, he had no time to take a break. In the late 90’s he began creating limited edition vinyl toys, which were instantly grabbed up by fans and toy collectors across the globe. His key market appeared to mainly be in Japan, where collecting toys was very common and highly respected. KAWS has also been involved with a few collaborations with different clothing companies like Original Fake, A Bathing Ape and Kung Faux. He has even made snowboards for Burton and different kicks for Nike and Vans. KAWS has painted everywhere from Paris and Berlin to Tokyo and London. KAWS’ ability to blur the line between fine art and street art is a huge reason he has such a wide audience. His sculptures and paintings both have recurring themes in them that anyone can understand in any language. His new exhibit “Down Time” at The High Museum highlights some of KAWS’ older work that he has created.

Walking up to the museum in the Sifly Piazza you are greeted by a 16 ft sculpture of KAWS’ character, Companion. Created by KAWS in 2010, the sculpture portrays a generic grey and white cartoon character with a Mickey Mouse inspired body and gloves whose head is a skull and cross bones. The gloves, that cover Companion’s eyes in a see no evil fashion, have KAWS’ trademark X’s on them. The sculpture gave me a sort of depressing vibe and you almost feel bad for the sad guy. KAWS says Rodin’s The Thinker was an inspiration for Companion’s posture. I get the feeling that Companion is down because even a happy go lucky cartoon gets somber sometimes, right?

Inside at the top Sky Level of the museum the rest of KAWS’ art can be found.

The first room is filled with 27 circle canvases that KAWS has hand painted. The images are close up views of his KAWSBOB prints, a play on SpongeBob SquarePants. The canvases were all close-ups of character eyes crossed out by X’s and views of mouths with tongues out and teeth showing. His use of straight lines is so thorough and precise it’s almost like he’s a robot.

Strolling over to the back room was a more intimate look at some of his smaller pieces, which were still equally amazing.

KAWS’ sketches were an inside look at how his art process as a whole begins. His attention to detail and use of shading is so unique and impressive. There were at least twenty framed sketches, all of which were eye-catching. The sketches ranged from outlines for T-shirt designs to ideas for toys. Most people walked right by the sketches but I highly recommend taking a closer look to actually see how detailed this guy really is.

The tucked away room also features KAWS’ collaboration with fashion photographer David Sims. These photos of celebrities like Kate Moss and Iggy Pop were made even cooler with the help of KAWS. His ghost-like character is hugging Kate’s body with such perfect form that they appear to have been at the actual photo shoot. There were about twelve of these photos displayed on the wall and they led you to a display of a few vinyl toys made by KAWS. There was his take on Pinocchio and Jiminy Crickett with and a few different versions of Companion also. My favorite was the almost cute Darth Vader doll with red X’s for eyes.

KAWS is truly one of our generations top crossover graffiti artist so I would totally recommend going to check out this exhibit while it’s in town. The exhibit ends May 20, so make sure you make some time to check it out.

Our homie, Ryan O’Malley, is one of the best woodworking/print-gurus I’ve ever seen in action. He recently left a teaching gig in Charlotte to travel the country and share his press-working skills in a series of workshops in every city imaginable. He has since left to take a teaching position in TX, but he left a gift for the Queen City before he took off. (via Kitschworth)

Local artists send a message to BP. This is a time-lapse of their installation on the Krog Street Tunnel in ATL.

Kevin Perry sent in this photo from the Plaza Theatre on Ponce de Leon here in ATL. The upper-left corner of this movie poster for, Moon, is bearing an EC sticker from over 2 years ago. I haven’t seen one of these around town in a long time.

Alright, the next person to email us a photo of an EC sticker that’s still living somewhere in town wins a PROCESS prize pack!

El Bar’s front door has a new look. Artwork by Dr. Dax & Keet. Snap a photo in front of it this weekend! The weekly lineup is in the sidebar to the right.

Name:
GREG MIKE

Aka:  
GMIKE, GM, MR MIKE.

Website:
http://www.gregmike.com

Other projects I am involved in:
www.carpeusa.com
www.freemaven.com
www.themidnightsocialite.com
www.gmcreativegroup.com

Where are you from?
Danbury, Connecticut. (Located in southwest CT about 45 min from NYC) Only thing cool from there growing up was the DANBURY FAIR MALL and the graffiti scene.

Who do you work for? 
Primarily, I work for GM CREATIVE which is a one stop VISUAL / CREATIVE / FASHION DESIGN FIRM that I launched this past year. There are a few other projects I started in the past few years but as for those I am only involved on a creative direction and /or investment level.

What are your Current Project(s)? 
I have been spending my days handling various creative projects for clients ranging anywhere from designing and producing full fashion collections to branding and graphic / visual work. Most recently, We launched Dallas Austin’s line  “ROWDY” in LENOX MALL which is his first flagship store carrying everything from hoodies to teeshirts to accessories.

My evenings have consisted of focusing on a large series of pieces for a few ART SHOWS we will be doing this fall in ATL, SAN FRAN and NYC.  It’s consisting of 120 pieces, clothing, merch and more. Approximately 65 pieces have been completed and it’s looking like I will be finished by the mid September.  We will be launching the show details next month so stay tuned to http://www.gregmike.com for details.

Also, over the past few years, Caleb Gauge, Issac Madrid (SMUG) and I have been working on “FREEMAVEN”.  A business that is a culmination of all our areas of expertise: FASHION, MUSIC, ENTERTAINMENT and DESIGN.  We are letting it build organically and taking our time with it and have some really exciting things in store for the next few years.

Who would you love to work with?
Ron English because he’s so versatile and talented, Mike Giant because his line art and handskills are topnotch, Banksy because he’s so anonymous and genius, Zevs because he doesn’t give a fuck and Bob Ross cause he’s was so happy (R.I.P)..

If you had to give all your sneakers away to charity except for one pair, which ones would you keep? 
My black hightop converse chucks, because they are forever classic and they go with anything. Big ups to ARE BERNARD at ABADABBAS for keeping the 12’s coming.

What’s on your iPod right now?
Trouble & Bass, Duck Sauce, Donnis, B.O.B, Mike Posner, 90 songs from the 1990’s thanks to LARRY @ (PROCESS) and bunch of other ATL tunes and random remixes I downloaded and never listen to anymore.

What’s your Favorite ATL food?
El Myr or La Fonda, behind that it’s got to be MF SUSHI.

What’s your Favorite ATL hangout?
My design / art studio during the day and the condo at night. Relaxing and recapping.

What are your Pet Peeves?
kids crying on airplanes, clients with past due invoices, stubborn and non-driven individuals.

Shout outs?
KTL, Caleb Gauge, Tommy Gunz, Smug, 335mm, SchoolBoy and Asher Paul, H.Sauce, Donnis, Dallas A + Rowdy, Smiles, ACNY, The Whiz Kid, Gentlemen Jim and Carpe Family, Henny B, PROCESS, The Danger Dudes, Patty & ADLT SWIM, Petey Smallz, The LoudMouth and PS+CH Crew, Cory, MDNGHT, Both sides of the FAM, special thanks and shout outs to anyone who has been down for the cause!

The other day, Ted and I passed through Atlanta Bench on Marietta Street in search of some big, juicy, drippy graffiti markers for a special project. We were pleased to find a large selection of Montana paints, Krink products, and apparel by lots of local graf writers and artists such as Urban Medium. We spent some time talking to the store’s owner, Rich, and we’re looking forward to working with them in the near future. Also, we discovered a new ink called Soup, which is made locally right here in ATL. For any outside-the-box project, it’s definitely great having a boutique like this in our backyard.

My buddy Jesse Miller sent me this photo from downtown Atlanta the other day. It looks like we’ve put words in the mouth of ATL’s own, Dr. Blade. This isn’t the first time we’ve crossed paths with Dr. Blade. A couple years back, we both participated in Museum of Design Atlanta‘s “To A T” show together.

I’ve always said that there is something in Atlanta’s water. Just remember to filter your H20 before you drink it. Keep a look out on the blog for a sneak peek of a summer tee design.

My buddy Logan, the drummer for Chi-town’s Crystal Gravy, sent me this iPhone photo yesterday as the stickers I worked on with his band arrived in time for their big weekend show. Don’t be surprised if you start seeing these babies all over Chicago’s hot spots.