Jeff Divine
Growing up in La Jolla, CA, Jeff Divine began taking pictures of his fellow surfers in his hometown during the 1960’s and got to know the original alternative sport before it became mainstream. His work took him to a staff position in 1971 with Surfer Magazine where he would begin decades of annual trips to the North Shore of Oahu, Hawaii and numerous surf trips all over the world.
Sarah Faux
Faux’s paintings combine figurative representation with abstract elements, creating a visceral connection to both material and subject. In her compositions bodies are presented in cropped, fragmented parts—a formal strategy that pulls the viewer into an intimate, up-close perspective. Borrowing from a feminist toolbox, these paintings are structured from a first person point of view, looking down at oneself into an interior emotional landscape. Faux’s paintings weave this sensory knowledge with sexual expression. In her erotic, abstract world, power dynamics shift as fluidly as gender blurs.
Mark Thomas Gibson
Mark Thomas Gibson (born 1980) is an American visual artist working in painting, print, ink, and watercolor. Gibson’s work explores Black representation in the United States using the medium of comics. Gibson focuses on using the language of comic as a tool for social justice. His work involves graphic novels, consisting of black and white pen drawings, and colorful paintings developed from imageries chosen from his books.“I look at American culture from a multipartite viewpoint as an artist—as a black male, a professor, an American history buff and comic book nerd.
Daniel Gordon
Daniel Gordon (b. 1980 Boston, MA; raised in San Francisco, California, USA) earned a Bachelor of Arts from Bard College in 2004, and a Master of Fine Arts from the Yale School of Art in 2006. “Meticulous” and “delirious” are two seemingly contradictory yet completely apt words that have been used to describe the work of the Brooklyn-based artist, whose creations are equal parts sculpture, collage and photography, and vacillate between analog and digital techniques. Gordon incorporates sections from hundreds of images culled from the Internet and arranges them in three-dimensional compositions —generally portraits and still lifes — which he then photographs. The results of this painstaking process are vivid, ecstatic, and ultimately serene.
LeRoy Grannis
American photographer LeRoy Grannis (1917-2011) captured the early surf lifestyle of Southern California unlike any other of his generation. His images convey the quintessential romance and nostalgia of 1960’s surf culture, with the New York Times having dubbed him the “godfather of surf photography.” Although he started surfing as a teenager, Grannis only began taking photos at the age of 42. He was able to capture the very roots of what is now a worldwide phenomenon. Being a surfer himself, he brought a uniquely intimate perspective to his craft, and is revered by modern day surfers and photographers alike.
Hugh Holland
Photographer Hugh Holland captured the beauty and grace of the burgeoning skateboarding scene in Southern California during the 1970’s. Holland documented his friends and locals who were thrill seeking youth in pursuit of a perfect ride. From the hills of Laurel Canyon to emptied drought-stricken pools and the sidewalks of Venice, Holland’s work is an important time capsule of this youth driven movement.
Neil Kellerhouse
Art director and designer Neil Kellerhouse views the “poster” (or making a single representative image) as a necessary exercise — using one frame to tell the viewer about the film. WAX Poster is pleased to share this collaboration between Kellerhouse and Ai Weiwei.
Spike Lee
Spike Lee is an Academy Award-winning director, writer, actor, producer, author, and professor whose body of work has continued to grow over the last three decades. He has directed and produced over 30 films since his first feature, the independently-produced “She’s Gotta Have It.” Born in Atlanta, GA, and raised in Da Republic of Brooklyn, Lee went South to attend Morehouse College. He then returned to NYC to continue his education at NYU Tisch, where he received his MFA in Film Production. After graduation, he founded 40 Acres and a Mule Filmworks in Brooklyn. Lee began teaching a course on filmmaking at Harvard in 1991 and in 1993 he joined the faculty at Tisch in the graduate film program where he was appointed artistic director in 2002, a position he still holds today.
Matthew Porter
Matthew Porter’s work has been profiled in The New York Times and included in group shows at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the International Center of Photography Museum. His work has been exhibited in galleries in New York, Los Angeles, Paris and London and is held in the permanent collections of The Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York) and The Sir Elton John Photography Collection, among others. Matthew Porter lives and works in Brooklyn.
Ralph Steadman
Welsh artist Ralph Steadman is revered for his ink-splattered, anarchic drawings. His well-known illustrations, alongside the work of his comrade, literary legend Hunter S. Thompson, fueled their signature brand of Gonzo journalism and at the same time incited a cult-like following of fans.
Joseph Szabo
Joseph Szabo, a teacher, photographer and author, has been photographing teenaged students for the past forty years and has perfectly captured the ambivalence of that time of life. In the early seventies he taught photography at Malverne High School in Long Island. He managed to capture the passion, but also the self-consciousness of those post-puberty years. Szabo is the recipient of a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship and his work resides in the permanent collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Yale University, The International Centre of Photography and the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris, among others.
Ai Weiwei
Thrust upon the world stage as an influential political activist and masterful contemporary artist, WAX Poster is pleased to share work by Weiwei as well as a collaboration with art director and designer, Neil Kellerhouse.