URGE #1 GREEN

URGE #1 is the opening plate of the URGE portfolio, a 2020 set of screenprints by KAWS issued in a numbered edition. The green colorway here uses a saturated mid-value ground against which the figure's contours are printed in contrasting tones, with the X-marked eyes that signal the Companion character. The URGE series presents close-cropped framings of the figure in postures that read as gestures of distress, withdrawal, or self-comfort — hands covering the face, head bowed, body curled inward. Screenprinting allows the portfolio to maintain flat color planes and consistent registration across colorway variants. The series was conceived during the early pandemic period when KAWS was working in a more inwardly focused studio mode, and the prints have been read alongside his larger Holiday inflatable sculptures of the same years as parallel investigations of emotional content delivered through commercially familiar visual languages.