Photo By Gail

Kenny Scharf (b. 1958)  moved to New York City in 1978 to attend the School of Visual Arts, and rose to prominence in the downtown art scene alongside his friends Keith Haring and Jean-Michel Basquiat. Influenced by popular culture and comic books, Scharf’s distinctly colorful and dynamic work presents joyful worlds filled with carton and anthropomorphic characters.

Inside Out (1984) transports viewers into a vibrant realm teeming with smiling, geometric figures in blue. Lines spray-painted in pink and red cross the canvas and transform into a vortex — reminiscent of the Tasmanian Devil’s tornado from the Loony Tunes cartoons. Scharf extends this world through the cosmic, galaxy-filled landscape in the opened mouth of the central blue figure.

Photographed in The Broad Museum in Los Angeles.