Tony Shafrazi 1985

Kenny Scharf gained prominence in New York City's East Village art scene in the 1980s for his ambitious, cartoon-like installations and paintings and his frequent collaborations with his friends, artists Keith Haring and Jean-Michel Basquiat. Scharf's fun, colorful work is both a nod to the future and a reference to past art historical movements such as Pop and Surrealism. His multidisciplinary practice exists in the realm where pop culture meets science fiction, and his imagery celebrates everything from the Jetsons and the Flintstones to one-eyed creatures, mischievous monsters, and donuts in space. "One very important and guiding principle to my work is to reach out beyond the elitist boundaries of fine art and connect to popular culture through my art," says Scharf. "My personal ambition has always been to live the example. I believe the artist has a social responsibility to engage others in a thought process that ultimately brings the creative process into everyday life thereby enhancing the quality of our experience." Since his rise to prominence years ago at the 1985 Whitney Biennal to his recent ambitious street art survey Art In the Streets at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, Scharf continues to approach his practice Screen printing is a printing technique that uses a woven mesh to support an ink-blocking stencil. The attached stencil forms open areas of mesh that transfer ink or other printable materials which can be pressed through the mesh as a sharp-edged image onto a substrate. A roller or squeegee is moved across the screen stencil, forcing or pumping ink past the threads of the woven mesh in the open areas. Screen printing is also a stencil method of print making in which a design is imposed on a screen of silk or other fine mesh, with blank areas coated with an impermeable substance, and ink is forced through the mesh onto the printing surface. It is also known as silkscreen, seriography, and serigraph.