Kyle Wallack, known professionally as KW, is a multifaceted American artist and creator whose work is rooted in perseverance, observation, and an unrelenting need to create. His earliest memory of creating began at the dinner table with his father, drawing late into the night and learning to understand the world through images. In his early twenties, Wallack’s life shifted after being diagnosed with cancer of the parotid gland on the left side of his face, requiring two major surgeries. Returning to his New York City apartment in the East Village following surgery, he discovered a discarded easel in his building’s trash and carried it up to his apartment on East 7th Street, where painting became his sole focus during a long period of recovery. Largely confined indoors, he worked obsessively, creating robot figures that later revealed themselves as self portraits, with exposed wires emerging from the head, heart, and stomach, reflecting internal struggle and resilience. As his health returned, Wallack reentered Lower Manhattan, immersing himself in street culture and the galleries of Chelsea, where his work gained early visibility through exhibitions in the East Village, Lower East Side, and Chelsea. This included a painting that was auctioned at the Guggenheim Gallery. Surrounded by the energy of New York, he developed what he coined Refined Graffiti; a collision of raw street language and fine art structure. His work gained broader recognition after being featured in the music video Mi Mami by Cardi B and El Alfa, leading to national exhibitions with galleries including Quidley and Company Fine Art, BG Gallery, OSO Studio, Dean Street Gallery, and the Imagine Museum, with shows spanning New York, Los Angeles, Miami, Tampa, Palm Beach, San Francisco, and St. Petersburg. His work is held in private collections, including those of Missy Elliott (Mucisian), Aaron Judge (MLB Player), Poobear (Mucisian), Arike Ogunbowale (WNBA Player), Jason Sudeikis (Actor), and Seth Jarvis (NHL Player). In recent years, Wallack’s practice has evolved through a deep study of late nineteenth and early twentieth century painting, returning him to oil paint and the human figure, focusing on everyday life and the emotional deconstruction of presence. Shaped by illness, recovery, and reinvention, his work carries a message of hope and connection, guided by the belief,
“Here for a period of time, to create something that will last forever”
Artist Statement
My work comes from observing the world as it unfolds in ordinary moments, both in public spaces and behind closed doors. I am drawn to people in their most unguarded states, eating, drinking, sitting, waiting, or alone in their homes, navigating the quiet unknowns that exist within everyday life. These moments are often overlooked, yet they carry emotional weight. Rather than constructing narratives, I focus on presence, allowing life as it is to exist without explanation.
After a cancer diagnosis and a long period of recovery in my early twenties, creation became essential to my survival. That experience continues to shape my practice, not as subject matter, but as a way of understanding vulnerability, resilience, and perception. I am interested in how lived experience alters the way we see, feel, and exist in the world, and how adversity can sharpen awareness rather than diminish it.
My paintings deconstruct the human figure emotionally rather than anatomically. I allow imperfections, revisions, and subtle distortions to remain visible, reinforcing the idea that perception is never neutral. Whether working in oil paint or within my Refined Graffiti practice, I am interested in the tension between control and chaos, intuition and discipline.
Refined Graffiti is shaped not only by my surroundings, but by the artists, movements, and cultural histories that precede me. It is a practice rooted in dialogue, placing contemporary experience in conversation with art history by merging the immediacy of street language with the discipline and structure of fine art.Through this collision, I aim to acknowledge the past while speaking in the visual language of the present.
At the core of my practice is the belief that time is limited, but creation can endure. I live and work by the idea that I am here for a period of time to create something that will last forever. My work is an attempt to honor that belief by recording what it feels like to be human now, shaped by memory, history, and the act of creating itself.
