Skyler Grey is a street artist working in spray paint, silkscreen and acrylic, who began exhibiting his work and receiving international acclaim at the age of 13. Citing Jean-Michel Basquiat and Keith Haring as artistic influences, Grey makes colorful, large-scale paintings that frequently depict celebrities or cartoon characters. He has exhibited both nationally and internationally and is the recipient of numerous honors and awards, including the 11th Annual 365 Black Awards in 2014.
Often referred to as “The Fresh Prince of Street Art,” Grey defines contemporary pop art for a new century. His bold figurations freely appropriate iconography such as Mickey Mouse, Popeye and Batman alongside luxury brands Chanel, Louis Vuitton and Hermes. These maximalist compositions deftly combine silkscreens, acrylic, spray paint and surfaces flocked with diamond dust. While the legacies of artists such as Basquiat and Haring inform Grey’s practice, he experiments freely, upending traditional notions of painting and presentation in a singular vocabulary which speaks to his experience as a young Black male in modern America. His new series, “America the Beautiful” is situated as a two-act body of work which draws from comic book heroes and champions of Saturday morning cartoons.
Enrolled in art classes at an early age as a form of catharsis following his mother’s untimely death, Grey funnels raw emotion into the stock imagery of consumerism. In 2018, Grey was the official artist of the MLB All Star Game in Washington, D.C., which involved a special collaborative mural with baseball commissioner Rob Manfred. In 2019, he was commissioned to design and paint a unique Aventador S model by the Italian luxury sports automobile brand, Lamborghini. Only 19 years old at the time, he is the only artist to have ever touched a brush to a Lamborghini vehicle, let alone to have created “the first legal street art on wheels,” according to Forbes magazine.
Grey’s work is included in numerous private and public collections, including University of Michigan Museum of Art. It has also been covered extensively by the media including The Los Angeles Times, Paper Magazine and The New York Post's “Page Six.”
