For several decades, pop art led the way in shaping the artistic landscape of the 20th century. Now, in the mainstream art market of the 21st century, a new pop art craze has emerged. Consisting of street graffiti, art toys etc., this new category of increasingly sought after art collections is often referred to as "New Pop Art", and rapidly spread to occupy all forms of media, both new and old. Regardless of whether its an original artwork, or electronic copies of digital designs, New Pop Art works have drawn large amounts of attention from the young generation of collectors, as well as become one of the most popular types of art to be purchased for investment purposes.

KAWS's real name is Brian Donnelly. He was born in 1974 in New Jersey, USA. It was the characters from 1980s movies like Star Wars and Transformers, and television shows such as Sesame Street, Snoopy, Garfield, the Simpsons, and other such cartoons that accompanied Brian throughout his childhood. Almost all children from that era across the world were similarly influenced by American pop culture in some way. Little by little, these childhood impressions helped shape Brian's sense of humor and served as inspiration for a rich imaginary fantasy world.

Brian loved skateboarding from a young age. When Brian later moved from Jersey City to New York, he got to broaden his horizons and gain a deeper understanding of Manhattan through skateboarding. Brian would go to the skate park every weekend. The areas surrounding Brooklyn Bank are great for skateboarding and nearby is a hotspot for New York street graffiti. The bright patterns, cool skateboard designs, and the bold spray paint graffiti all became his inspiration for art. He greatly admired the skateboard designer Jim Phillips. The classic pattern of the 1980 renowned work, Screaming Hand, quietly influenced Brian's later work, Hands of Death.

In 1987, Brian became interested in graffiti, so he began to sketch casually in his notebooks. Because Brian attended a Catholic school, he would deliberately draw something anti-religious, or perhaps a rad-looking monster. In high school, he upped his game and started wall graffiti. Young people like to label their names within their works. However, since graffiti is illegal, they can't use their real names. So Brian designed the four-letter KAWS, which he has been using ever since.

For his first work on a large billboard, he selected the advertisement of Captain Morgan, an alcohol manufacturer. Careful not to cover the original image, he meticulously coordinated the colors, harmoniously integrating KAWS letters into the advertisement, giving his graffiti experiment a layered and visual aesthetic. When Captain Morgan switched to a new advertising billboard in 1995, he painted it again. The two photographic image records have become famous masterpieces that are representative of KAWS's graffiti history during his college years.

His earliest street art was mostly created across large surfaces, such as walls, billboards, and the sides of cargo trucks. KAWS made his iconic skull and bones and XX marks starting with the graffiti on the Marlboro advertising billboard in 1996. KAWS designed a skull with two crossed bones, a pair of XX eyes, and a curved body like a snake, named Bendy (bend, sperm). This sperm-like image later made its way into street advertising, setting up the popularity of KAWS.

In 1996, KAWS learned locksmith skills from his artist friend Barry McGee. In the next few years, he would often take street advertisements out of their glass cabinets, and then go back to the studio to add graffiti before putting them back. The posters would have Bendy images or partially dirty skull masks. The life and death images of the skull and sperm are consistent throughout the world, so there is no confusion. The artist finds this to be particularly compelling. He applied the remaining cel animation paint of his animation work to the graffiti of street posters to create a plastic-like effect. The seamless addition of the brush and paint entwine with the model's posture to produce an unexpected sense of fun. In the 1990s, he deliberately chose advertising photography that was avant-garde or even provocative, such as Guess, Calvin Klein and other brands.

KAWS inserts his creativity into street posters, utilizing humorous and spoofing subvertising behavior to bestow new meaning to street graffiti. He modified the exquisite and glamorous portraits of models, ridiculing the anti-utopia of the United States, creating quite a whirlwind. Some brands later took the initiative to find KAWS and request modifications for their own brand advertisements. These posters later became sought-after items for collectors. There were about 60-70 street posters produced in New York which were later replicated in London and Paris as spoofed advertisements. KAWS is classified as Brandalism in Punk culture. He incorporates his brand with Vandalism, embodying artistic depth and breadth.

In 1993, he started studying at the School of Visual Art in Manhattan. The renowned graffiti artist Keith Haring is also an alumnus, and was also someone who KAWS looks up to. KAWS is not like his graffiti predecessors-Taki 183, Futura Basquiat (SAMO), and Keith Haring, who laid low and painted in dark subway stations and under land bridges. Instead, he preferred large billboards and container compartments along bright roads, and later advertising boxes for bus stops and phone booths. These all serve as a prelude to his grand plan of landscape art which he implemented in major cities in the world many years later.

KAWS worked at the Disney animation studio Jumbo Pictures for three years after graduation. His experience making drawings for animated TV series provided inspirations for his well-liked cartoon characters in the future, including the Kimpson, Skurfs, KAWSBOB, and BFF（Best Friends Forever).

In 1997, KAWS was invited by his college classmate to travel to Japan for the first time. Through the referral of Yoshifumi "YOPPI" Egawa (the founder of streetwear brand realmad HECTIC), KAWS got to meet several fashion circles celebrity designers such as "NIGO" Tomoaki Nagao (A Bathing Ape / BAPE), Jun Takahashi (UNDERCOVER), Hikaru Iwanaga (Bounty Hunter), and Takizawa Shinsuke (NEIGHBORHOOD). In this trip to the East, HECTIC apparel commissioned KAWS to produce custom toy designs in collaboration with Bounty Hunter. This led to the release of KAWS's first three-dimensional work-the toy figurine version of Companion. Companion was the earliest toy figure created by KAWS, with his highly recognizable skull and bones, and XX marks as eyes. The figures are also known for wearing gloves, shorts and shoes.

In 2006, KAWS and Japanese toy dealer Medicom Toy opened a physical store called OriginalFake in the Minami-Aoyama district of Tokyo, setting a milestone in the trend industry. According to his artistic style, planning, and design, all goods sold are an extension of the KAWS art concept. KAWS positions himself as an artist, designer, and producer. He also co-designed different versions of Companion with other artists, such as Hajime Sorayama, designer BAPE, furniture company Karimoku, and toy company Medicom Toy. He even made a semi- anatomical version, much like a medical model. The semi-anatomical version of the Companion toy is more expensive due to the complexity of the production process. It's worth pondering how KAWS's series of toy names embody the meaning of friends or companions, e,g., Companion (1999), Chum (2002), Accomplice (2002), The Twins (2006), BFF (2016) and Together (2017).

As in the past when he borrowed from commercials, KAWS has also borrowed from the imagery of his cartoon classics, such as the Simpsons, Smurfs, and SpongeBob SquarePants. Around the year 2000, KAWS began to paint these cartoon images on canvas, and these acrylic paintings have become some of the most sought-after works on the auction market. Between 2010 and 2014, KAWS began to experiment with a series of abstract paintings. Most of these works were made on multi-panel and tondo (circular) canvases, with anxious and distorted cartoon character facial features, and recognizable XX eyes. It is abstracted and fragmented, just like a camouflage pattern.

KAWS's artwork displays self restraints and emotional detachment. Whenever we tried to understand his characters, the eyes crossed with Xs denied any exchange of emotion. The themes were cute and humorous, but yet emotionally reserved; regardless of fear or greed, and refused to communicate. According to art critics, KAWS's artwork themes are mostly self relatable. Some topics are short, lively, and simple; if the topics are long, it conceives his calculations and life story. Celluloid paint is used in animations and implications in the cartoon characters. The artwork boldly disturbs natural perspective with extremely plain coloring, smooth texture, and unique color palette-neon red, light and black, burgundy red, and purple, to establish a rich composition. It creates a mysterious personal indication, and even carries the grandeur of an impressionist.

KAWS began his official partnership with prominent French art dealer Emmanuel Perrotin in 2008. Born in 1968, Perrotin started his art gallery in his early twenties. Over the years, he partnered with several renowned artists, including Takashi Murakami, Maurizio Cattelan, KAWS, JR and rising star Daniel Arsham. Other than the headquarter gallery located in Paris, Perrotin Gallery also has locations in Hong Kong, Shanghai, Tokyo and Seoul. Within the eleven years of KAWS and Perrotin partnership, they accomplished nine outstanding exhibitions which attracted tremendous amount of visitors.

After holding the solo exhibition, Gone, at Skarstedt Gallery in New York in 2018, KAWS officially discontinued relations with Galerie Perrotin in 2019 to begin collaborating with Per Skarstedt. Skarstedt Gallery represented a number of heavyweight contemporary artists, such as George Baselitz, George Condo and Richard Prince. It was obvious that the financial strength and influence of Skarstedt Gallery were superior to that of Galerie Perrotin.

Public collectors of the art of KAWS include Museum of Contemporary Art, San Diego, Brooklyn Museum, Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth and One Campus Martius.

KAWS's earliest aesthetic products began on the streets, and belonged to the underground with an anti-cultural message. Unlike traditional artists following mainstream models, he adopted personalized player tactics that combined the visual communication channels of the Internet and blogs to challenge the rules, while simultaneously constructing a contemporary legend.