ZEPHYR

(New York, US)

ZEPHYR, born Andrew Witten, is a graffiti artist, lecturer and author from New York City. He began creating graffiti in 1975 and first signed using the name "Zephyr" in 1977. He has been identified as a graffiti "elder", who along with Futura 2000, Blade, PHASE 2, CASH, Lady Pink and TAKI 183 invented styles and standards which are still in use.

His works can be seen in the hip-hop culture documentary Style Wars and he was featured as himself in the landmark hip-hop motion picture Wild Style. He is co-author of a 2001 biography of fellow graffiti artist, Dondi White: Dondi White Style Master General: The Life of Graffiti Artist Dondi White. He is interviewed in the 2005 DIY graffiti video The Art of Storytelling, where he talks about fallen graffiti artist Nace. He was featured in the documentary Bomb It.

His name was inspired by a brand of surfboards and skateboards. Many of his most popular pieces have been done by simply redesigning his trademark name "Zeph" or "Zephyr". Sharp contrast in the edges of the letters are also featured throughout his artwork.

Watch this video by Walrus TV:

USUGROW

(Japan)

Usugrow began his own artistic activity by creating flyers in underground punk and hard core music scene in early 90's. Since then, he has been involved in various album cover designs for bands and musicians regardless of genre, art directions and merchandises, and also collaborating with lots of skateboarding brands and fashion brands.

Usugrow expanded the range of his activity and done several solo exhibition at art galleries in Japan and overseas since 2005, and published his first monograph. In addition to his solo exhibition, he has been curating the group exhibition and book projects with Japanese artists since 2009.

He currently works on mainly illustration, painting and calligraphy as well as live painting, collaboration project with other artists and three-dimensional artwork.

Watch this video:

SHEPARD FAIREY

(1970, South Carolina, US)

Frank Shepard Fairey is an American contemporary street artist, graphic designer, activist and illustrator who emerged from the skateboarding scene. He first became known for his "Andre the Giant Has a Posse" (…OBEY…) sticker campaign while attending the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD), which appropriated images from the comedic supermarket tabloid Weekly World News.

Fairey's first art museum exhibition, entitled Supply & Demand (as was his earlier book), was held in Boston at the Institute of Contemporary Art during the summer of 2009. The exhibition featured more than 250 works in a wide variety of media: screen prints, stencils, stickers, rubylith illustrations, collages, and works on wood, metal and canvas.

As a complement to the ICA exhibition, Fairey created public art works around Boston. The artist explains his driving motivation: "The real message behind most of my work is 'question everything'."

In July of 2015, Fairey was arrested and detained at Los Angeles International Airport, after passing through customs, on a warrant for allegedly vandalizing 14 buildings in Detroit. He subsequently turned himself in to Detroit Police.

Watch this video of OBEY:

ROB ABEYTA JR.

(1972, US)

Rob Abeyta Jr. is painter, designer and art director living in the harbor area of Los Angeles. Currently, he is working with NIKE as the senior designer on a new line of sneakers & apparel to rollout later this year. In addition, he is a member of SA Studios creative team with Mr. Cartoon and Estevan Oriol. 

His past works have included collaborations with Spike Jonze, French Director and Academy Award Winner Michel Gondry and numerous music packaging designs ranging from the seminal punk band LOS CRUDOS, to The Transplants, to LA hip hop legends MACK 10, Cypress Hill and DJ Quick. 

Other works include the design of numerous skateboards and apparel while working as an Art Director for Fourstar Clothing at the Girl Skateboard Companies. While design and art direction take up his days, the nights are taken up by learning the process of tattooing with Mr. Cartoon.

RICH JACOBS

(1972, California, US)

Rich Jacobs is an American artist and curator who currently lives and works in Oakland, CA. Jacobs has exhibited in the United States, Europe, Australia, New Zealand and Japan. In 2008 his work Minor Threat Family Tree was featured prominently along with other works by Jacobs at the London Ontario Live Arts Festival in Canada.

Inspired by graffiti, psychedelic and folk art, Jacobs' raw, colorful work frequently appears on a broad range of materials such as magazines, books, CD and LP covers (including most of the albums for Salt Lake City-based group Iceburn), footwear, apparel (such as parkas, skirts and dresses), skateboards, buildings, pillows and so on.

Watch this video of Rich painting on Culture Catch:

MIKE GIANT

(1971, New York, US)

Acclaimed worldwide for his prolific work in graffiti, illustration, design and tattoo, Mike Giant is one of the most complete artists of his generation.

As a child he moved to Albu­querque, New Mex­ico, where he stud­ied archi­tec­ture and later he landed in San Fran­cisco, where he was offered a job as a graphic draw­ing artist at Think Skate­boards. Even when he was very young, he worked as a writer in the world of graf­fiti and skate sub­cul­ture, becom­ing at the end of the nineties a tat­too artist, motor­cy­cle and bike cus­tomizer and, lastly, cre­ative mind of the lifestyle brand REBEL8. 

Mike Giant, who defines him­self as an “old hip­ster”, is known inter­na­tion­ally for the extreme pre­ci­sion and rig­or­ous black and white of his lines, that is affected by the influ­ence of pop­u­lar Mex­i­can art and Japan­ese illus­tra­tion. In his pro­duc­tion, that mixes styles and sym­bols of dif­fer­ent nature, we see a con­ver­gence of reli­gious iconog­ra­phy and death alle­gories, tribal sym­bol­ogy and Bud­dhist doc­trine, let­ter­ing and old school ele­ments, in a con­tin­u­ous inter­sect­ing of sacred and pro­fane, love and death. Seduc­tive pin ups and wink­ing femme fatales, BMX bikes, skulls, snakes and Cal­i­forn­ian urban visions pop­u­late his work, all made with extreme care, regard­less of the sup­port, whether it’s leather, paper, metal or cement. His draw­ings and mul­ti­ples have been shown in numer­ous spaces and gal­leries all over the world, from WDWA Gallery in New York to Mis­an­thropy Gallery in Van­cou­ver, to Magda Danysz Gallery in Paris to Mon­ster Chil­dren Gallery in Aus­tralia. Fur­ther­more, his works have often been used by lifestyle and cloth­ing brands, among which the bike com­pany Cinelli and the brands Tribal Gear and Upper Playground.

Watch this video by LandOfChrome:

JEREMY FISH

(1974, New York, US)

With a degree in painting and a focus in screenprinting Jeremy Fish's education and work experience has lead to a career as a fine artist, and a commercial illustrator. Finding a balance between exhibiting his work both across the US, and internationally in galleries and museums. while maintaining a presence designing skateboards, t-shirts, vinyl toys, album covers, periodical illustrations, murals, and sneakers. The artwork is mainly about storytelling and communication, told through a library of characters and symbols. With an emphasis on finding a balance with the imagery somewhere between all things cute and creepy. Jeremy is based in North Beach aka little italy, and has lived in San Francisco for the last 20 years.

DUG-1

Doug Cunningham 'Dug-1' and Jason Noto form Morning Breath. In 1996, the two worked together as the in-house design department at Think Skateboards in San Francisco. There, they began a style of collaborating that would take them into the next decade.

In 2002, Cunningham and Noto formalized their partnership with the creation of Morning Breath, Inc, a boutique studio located in Brooklyn, NY. Since Then, their collaborations have grown beyond skateboard/snowboard graphics to include, music packaging, apparel, advertising, poster design and more. The two have also been part of many showings of their personal work.

Today, Doug and Jason split their creative energies and time between commercial and personal work. Over the last decade the two have been nominated for a grammy, showcased in numerous design books/publications, and have been invited to speak about, and show  their work around the globe.

Watch this Morning Breath video by offthewalltv:

DENNIS MCNETT

(1972, Virginia, US)

Dennis McNett has been carving surly block prints for over 18 years. His encouragement as a kid came from his blind grandfather, who told him over and over again that his drawings were good. Later influences came from the raw high-energy imagery pouring out of the early 80's skateboard and punk rock scene.

His graphic aesthetic and love for narrative work has been translated in many ways. His work ranges from larger than life Viking ship performances and parades in Philly, resurrecting Nordic giants on West Broadway in Manhattan, Dragon slayings in Oklahoma, masks, installations and sculptures to unique hand-carved wood cut pieces, traditional relief prints, and graphics. 
 

Participating in both the fine art and design worlds, Dennis has been fortunate enough to create series’ for Anti-Hero skateboards, design shoes for Vans, have work fill the windows of Barneys, NY, and participate in the Deitch Artparade. His work has been featured in The New York Times, Juxtapoz magazine, Thrasher and Complex Magazine. 

Watch Dennis in his studio by Vans:

DALEK

(1968, Connecticut, US)

Dalek is an American artist and designer based in Raleigh, North Carolina. He has published two books featuring his artwork, as well as being included in many other books and magazines.

Merging animation, Japanese pop art, and an urban aesthetic, James Marshall 'Dalek' is best known for his Space Monkey character -a strange, vaguely humanoid mouse that he would depict in an array of bright colors and twisted circumstances, often wielding a butcher’s cleaver. Working under the name Dalek, Marshall expressed his ideas through the Space Monkey character until 2007, when he began working in a purely abstract style. 

He has always been engaged in skateboard and graffiti subcultures, and Marshall cites his two-year assistantship in the studio of controversial Japanese artist Takashi Murakami as a formative experience.

Watch a timelapse video by Hurley here:

BYRON O’NEILL

(1970, Detroit, US)

Byron O'Neill is an artist, as well as a design director at Jager DiPaola Kemp Design. O'Neill has gained much recognition in the past decade for his work on Burton Snowboards.

O'Neill has had both solo art shows, as well as group shows, all across the United States, most recently Geographically Speaking in San Francisco. He is also a member of the Iskraprint Collective.

BIGFOOT

(New Jersey, US)

Bigfoot is a California based nature loving artist and has been a influence in the skateboard industry for more than a decade. Originally from New Jersey, young Bigfoot fled to California to be closer to big trees and the Grateful Dead. 

Disassociated from art school and human society, in 1994 he started writing “Bigfoot” in the streets of San Francisco with relentless fury. Working often with house paint and wooden panels, his work depicts the conflict between the respect for nature held by the artist’s cast of Bigfoot characters and the destructive agenda of mankind. 

Despite his reclusive nature, Bigfoot has managed to stay active in society, designing skateboard graphics and footwear, showing in galleries in America and Japan, the release of his vinyl figure with Strangeco in 2004, and more recently his collaborations with The North Face and Hurley. His eponymous character and his love of heavy metal and especially the masked rock group KISS, play a major role in his studio work as well as his highly recognized art.

Watch more about Bigfoot here:

And here:

ANTHONY YANKOVIC

(Saint Petersburg, Florida, US)

Illustrator and Graphic Designer, Anthony Yankovic, has 9 years experience specializing in junior’s apparel, editorial illustration, skateboard and snowboard art, and brand development.

He has done Art Direction, Design, and Illustration on a multitude of projects including all aspects of the casual apparel industry, skateboard and snowboard graphics, plus numerous album covers, editorial and packaging illustrations.