Todd James

Who is Todd James?

Todd James is a contemporary artist from New York City. Self-taught, he started tagging the New York City Subway system under the name REAS when he was very young. James designed the Beastie Boys' Brooklyn Dust Elephant logo The Source logo as well as Mobb Deep, Red Man, Eminem, Kid Rock. Art from his coloring book/zine Attitude Dancer was used as a cover for Iggy Pop's Beat em up album . Todd Was the puppet designer for Crank Yankers on Comedy Central produced by Jimmy Kimmel and Jack Hole productions.

He created, with Barry McGee and Steve Powers, Street Market at New York City's Deitch Projects. This exhibition was selected for the 2001 Venice Biennale. In 2004, he also participated in the group exhibition Beautiful Losers which travelled to several museums in the US. The Street Market installation was Re built and expanded for the L.A. MOCA "Art in the Streets" in 2011.

His works have been shown at numerous museums and galleries worldwide, like the Tate Liverpool, the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts or the Institute of Contemporary Arts in Philadelphia.

His distinctive cartoon-style paintings are very ironic. Todd's paintings reflected a variety of influences, including the pop culture and American expressionist painters such as Willem de Kooning and Franz Kline.