The New York-based artist KAWS (Brian Donnelly), whose entry to fine art began with graffiti and public collage, isolates elements of popular cartoons in his paintings. In SCORE YEARS (2019), rounded forms evocative of animation "cel" painting intersect with flattened lines and their shadows, creating a web of hard-edged shapes that suggest barriers and separation. The painterly construction of depth acts as a trompe-l'oeil, an optical illusion employed by Renaissance artists concerned with perspective, while the flat planes of color align with the principles of hard edge painting. KAWS' simplest forms are indebted to his early poster work, which bear similarities to the subway drawings of the late street artist Keith Haring. Working in public necessitated what KAWS described as "stuff that's a quick read. You're competing against thousands of kids, and you learn from people who have done it before you."[1]