A menacing, prodigious, 300-pound, 16-foot-two-inch-long shark created using license plates from 50 U.S. states will propel itself into the global art world, buoyed by decades of art historical eminence and a ferocious narrative. 

RISK’s Face Your Fears (2018), inspired by Damien Hirst’s The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living (1991) and a conversation about Buddhism with the late painter Ed Moses, a seminal figure in the Post-War, West Coast art scene, goes on the block at Phillips in New York on June 24. The colossal sculpture, made for the BEYOND THE STREETS multimedia exhibition in Los Angeles, is expected to fetch between $100,000 and $150,000.

The contemporary artist, born Kelly Graval, rose to prominence in the 1980s as one of the first graffiti writers in Southern California to paint freight trains, making his mark by hitchhiking to New York City after graduating high school and becoming the first Los Angeles writer whose work ran on a subway car in 1988. The following year, the New York Metropolitan Transit Authority mandated that all subway cars be free of graffiti before running on the tracks. 

Moses introduced RISK to Buddhist teachings, including how the fundamental essence of fear is a feeling of rejection toward suffering. A former surfer, RISK dreaded sharks, compelling him to examine Hirst’s preoccupation with preservation in his Natural History series. RISK built on that foundation by constructing his sculpture from license plates to reference police as predators. Gazing up, the viewer becomes the shark’s prey, forced to confront their own fears. 

“I wanted the shark to be ominous, and I wanted there to be an urban setting with the license plates. The license plates, to me, represent one love, different races, colors, creeds. But they're just license plates, and I perched it way up high, because I wanted the viewer to be the prey,” RISK said in a Zoom interview.

By designing the sculpture to hang above viewers, RISK subverts Hirst, taking the shark out of the tank and figuratively placing himself in the tank. The anticipation mounts as RISK and Phillips contemplate how to install and present the stupendous work in the auction house’s new expansive headquarters and galleries at 432 Park Avenue. It will be on public display from June 17-23.

“It's an incredibly impressive piece. We're very excited to be offering it, and I think it's going to be a real statement piece on exhibition. It’s the first time that we're offering a piece by RISK, which we're also very excited about,” Scott Nussbaum, head of 20th Century & Contemporary Art, New York at Phillips, said in a phone interview. “Phillips takes a lot of pride in introducing artists to a wider audience. Obviously, he has quite a large following already. But we're excited to tap into that audience and also present (his work) to our existing client bases.”

Trailblazing RISK epitomizes the tireless efforts of Phillips to tear down art historical boundaries and challenge the perception of contemporary art which has long compartmentalized various genres, thereby undermining the significance of innovation.

“It’s obviously, visually, a very impressive piece, but one that's also rooted in our history. It references Damien Hirst, but it's also about unity in the sense that all of these different license plates from all different areas of the country are combined, in one unified creature. So, it's a work that I think works on a lot of different levels, and will appeal to a lot of different audiences,” said Nussbaum.

Defying characterization, RISK has taken Hollywood, rock and roll, and street wear by storm, juggling myriad ambitious projects. His latest venture is a modern-day incarnation of Andy Warhol's Factory, which became an ingenious hangout for musicians, drag queens, models, socialites, adult film stars, and free-thinkers at three different New York City locations between 1963 and 1984. The Risk Rock Studios Compound on a sprawling two-acre compound in Thousand Oaks, California, has emerged as the creative mecca for photographers, artists, actors, and musicians. 

Before the pandemic, RISK was creating art for music festivals, sponsored by Monster Energy. Quarantine sparked his idea for a happy hour, drawing collaborative, creative folks to his space on Thursdays.

“It just kind of grew from there. So now we have this West Coast hub of artists, incredible artists and musicians, that come here,” RISK said. “You can have any kind of musician or artist or actor or whoever here, just doing something creative, and it just kind of formed like that. We didn't think about it. It just happened.”

In the past few months, Dave Navarro, best known as a guitarist for Jane's Addiction and previously the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Foo Fighters drummer Taylor Hawkins, Slipknot frontman Corey Taylor, and Jane's Addiction bassist Chris Chaney, have joined RISK for groundbreaking collaborations. An old school punk rocker, RISK welcomed musicians from Train, Korn, Cypress Hill, The Cult, White Zombie, Helmet, and Suicidal Tendencies to the compound in May. Risk frequently collaborates with Blink-182 drummer Travis Barker. Over the years, he’s worked with a wide array of artists including Michael Jackson, Ice Cube, House of Pain, Aerosmith, Slash from Guns N' Roses, and Bad Religion. 

Shifting fluidly within the nebulous fine art and rock music universes, RISK also oscillates between commercial projects and creative pursuits. He has taken on sweeping commissions including painting at the 2020 Super Bowl in Miami, customizing an Indian Motorcycle, and painting the largest public mural in Canada.

RISK’s long-standing ties to the music world are chronicled in the 2016 book RISK: Old Habits Die Hard, featuring a quote from Aerosmith: "Risk is to art what Aerosmith is to rock and roll."

His brazen sharks are emblematic of his overarching efforts to infuse his singular skill, vision, and style across manifold pursuits.

RISK has created variations in his Shark Series, crafting the mold from a fiberglass shark he acquired after a seafood restaurant in Texas went bust. He eschews traditional painterly tools, favoring repurposed materials. One of his sharks debuted at the Montauk, New York, home dock of Frank Mundus, a fisherman and charter captain who reportedly was the muse for the character Quint in the movie and book Jaws. He painstakingly scoured flea markets “everywhere” for license plates to ensure representation across the nation, amassing multiple variations across states. 

Embracing the broad, consummate contemporary artist role, RISK views bursting into Phillips as a pivotal moment for graffiti writers. He’s led the charge, evolving from Godfather of the West Coast Graffiti movement to a darling of the global gallery and auction worlds. One of his shark sculptures, Face Your Fears - Metallic Tissue (2019-2020), created for the BEYOND THE STREETS New York exhibition solely with found metal objects and measuring and 62 inches long, 50 inches wide, and 51 inches tall, without the frame, is available at Chase Contemporary’s East Hampton, New York, location.

“Going to Phillips is awesome. It’s a necessary thing for all artists. It's a rite of passage, and I'm excited about it,” RISK said.