A revered figure in the West Coast graffiti subculture (typically associated with the skater and surfer communities), Barry McGee makes drawings, paintings, and mixed-media installations inspired by urban culture that incorporate elements such as empty liquor bottles and spray-paint cans, tagged signs, wrenches, and scrap wood or metal. McGee is also a graffiti artist, having produced work on the streets since the 1980s under the tag name “Twist”; his signature motif is the face of a man with sagging, tired eyes, rendered in an efficient linear style. McGee and his wife, artist Margaret Kilgallen were featured in the film Beautiful Losers, a 2008 documentary about Street Art and the DIY aesthetic.

Emerging on the street art scene of New York under the name REAS when he was 17 years old, Todd James creates acrylic paintings on canvas that retain the graphic nature of his early graffiti work. Distinguished by their hard-edged blocks of Day-Glo and neon colors that congeal into figurative compositions, James’s work ranges from the sexual—nude and scantily clad women—to the more political—gun-toting figures in tropical environs. Such subjects retain a sense of lightness through the artist’s buoyant use of color. His work draws from his diverse set of experiences; it demonstrates affinities with his former collaborators Steve Powers and Barry McGee, while its offbeat pop sensibility aligns it with musicians such as the Beastie Boys and Miley Cyrus and reflects his background in making puppets for a comedy series.