About the Author

Sandow Birk was born in Detroit, Michigan and raised on the beaches of Orange County, California. He is a graduate of the Otis Art Institute of Parsons School of Design, Los Angeles, and resides in Southern California. Subjects of his work include gang violence, graffiti culture, prisons, surfing, skateboarding, Dante's Divine Comedy, the Iraq war, and the Qur'an. Birk creates monumental series developed over the course of many years, often working across media to support his ideas through a multi-disciplinary approach--painting, drawing, printmaking, writing, film, video, and sculpture.