Los Angeles-based artist Sandow Birk has built a decades-long career creating work that grapples with contemporary life and pressing social issues, often weaving current events into broader narratives of art history. His practice is marked by ambitious, multi-year, multimedia projects that have evolved from local concerns to global themes.
Birk’s early work focused on urban life in Southern California—examining topics such as gang violence, graffiti culture, surfing, and skateboarding. These themes later expanded to address statewide issues like water rights, immigration, incarceration, and police brutality. His scope has since widened further to explore American history, global conflict, Islamic culture, and classical literature.
Text and image have played an integral role in his practice. He has created original works based on existing literary texts, including an illuminated manuscript of the entire Qur’an in English. His most recent book project, Pooh—a reimagining of The House at Pooh Corner—was published by Arion Press in San Francisco.
Birk is the recipient of numerous awards and residencies throughout his career. These include a 1995 NEA International Travel Grant to Mexico City, a 1996 Guggenheim Fellowship, and a 1997 Fulbright Fellowship to Rio de Janeiro. He was awarded a Getty Fellowship for painting in 1999 and a City of Los Angeles (COLA) Fellowship in 2001.
Further honors include an Artist Research Fellowship at the Smithsonian Institution in 2007, an artist residency at the Cité Internationale des Arts in Paris in 2008, and a residency at the Ballinglen Arts Foundation in Ireland in 2011. In 2014, he was named a United States Artists Knight Fellow.
Most recently, Birk received a 2020 Gottlieb Foundation Fellowship in recognition of his nearly 30-year body of work.
