28 Facts About Gary Baseman

Gary Baseman is a frequent speaker at international conferences on graphic and multidisciplinary arts and visual communications.

Gary Baseman was born and raised in Los Angeles, California.

The influence of media and Hollywood, blended with LA's influential art scene, led to how Gary Baseman would perceive and produce art.

Gary Baseman cites Yoshitomo Nara, Takashi Murakami, and the illustrator William Joyce as contemporaries.

Gary Baseman coined the term pervasive art as an alternative to the lowbrow art label.

Gary Baseman uses the term didactically to describe a broad shift in his and others' work to more visible avenues of art-making.

Today, artists whom Gary Baseman might refer to as pervasive are part of a larger movement with a recognizable "pop" sense, but not necessarily a shared artistic mission.

Gary Baseman employs traditional art practices such as painting, printmaking, sculpture, drawing, and collage.

For Gary Baseman, being a pervasive artist means staying true to a particular message and aesthetic no matter the medium employed.

Gary Baseman established himself during this period as an in-demand artist with a unique visual sense and the ability to generate sharp, witty messages.

Gary Baseman earned several awards from American Illustration, Art Directors Club and Communication Arts.

Gary Baseman refers to his illustration work, and to his general process, as message-making.

Gary Baseman's drawings have been published in The New Yorker, The Atlantic Monthly, Time, Rolling Stone, The New York Times and The Los Angeles Times.

Gary Baseman created the visual identity for the best-selling board game Cranium.

In 1999, Gary Baseman exhibited "Dumb Luck and Other Paintings About Lack of Control" at the Mendenhall Gallery in Los Angeles.

Since then, Gary Baseman has exhibited in museums and galleries throughout the United States, Brazil, Canada, China, France, Germany, Hong Kong, Israel, Italy, Mexico, New Zealand, the Philippines, Russia, Spain, Taiwan, Thailand, and the United Kingdom.

In Summer 2015, Gary Baseman commemorated Toby's 10th year as a formal artwork, blurring the lines of fine art and toy culture.

The exhibition was housed in another experiential environment conceptualized by Gary Baseman and co-designed by Hjalti Karlsson of New York-based design firm karlssonwilker.

Gary Baseman has translated many of his characters into toys and figurines, clothing, handbags, and other accessories.

For toy, figurine, and limited edition projects, Gary Baseman has collaborated with Critterbox, Toy2R, Kidrobot, Pretty in Plastic, The Loyal Subjects, and 3DRetro.

In 2015, Gary Baseman collaborated with Coach's Creative Director, Stuart Vevers, for the Gary Baseman x COACH 2015 Spring Collection.

The collection introduced an original series of Gary Baseman characters, capturing the attitude of New York City and developed with the Coach girl in mind.

In 1998, Gary Baseman co-created the Disney animated series Teacher's Pet with Bill and Cheri Steinkellner, which is about a dog who dresses as a boy because he wants to go to school.

Gary Baseman won the Outstanding Individual in Animation Emmy for Production Design in 2003.

Gary Baseman added performance art to his oeuvre in 2009 with "La Noche de la Fusion", a mythical holiday festival celebrating the bittersweetness of existence by fusing cultures and blurring the lines of reality.

In February 2015, Gary Baseman created "The Secret Order of the Camellias", a site-specific installation and performative space at the Serpentine Gallery in London that commemorated the Gary Baseman x Coach 2015 Spring collection.

The project began in 2012 when Gary Baseman first traveled to Eastern Europe on a Fulbright Fellowship, detouring to his parents' hometowns which had not been visited by any family member in over 60 years.

Gary Baseman says, "It's really about taking all of the different narratives from the myths I've been told and mixing them with my characters to try and find my truth," he says.