LeAndre Barnett was born and raised in South Florida. He started making art around the age of four, drawing from his imagination and from whatever television show he loved, specifically Japanese animation. When he discovered he would not be able to afford to study animation and illustration in college, he dedicated himself to self-education instead, finding his way to contemporary art and drawing his inspiration from Basquiat and Picasso.
Today his work sits at the intersection of fine art, pop culture, and art history: paintings and collages that carry the visual philosophy of Basquiat, the simplified information design of Virgil Abloh and Marcel Duchamp, and the character-building and world-building energy of manga artists like Akira Toriyama and Eiichiro Oda. It is impossible to look at his work and think you have seen it before.
