Mikael Brandrup

Mikael Brandrup, also known as "KETS," is a Danish visual artist, graphic designer and entrepreneur who currently lives in Los Angeles and was the subject of an in-depth article in the Danish periodical Jyllands-Posten. Brandrup is internationally known for combining the aesthetics of graffiti, fine art and graphic design in his outdoor and canvas work. Brandrup was a featured artist at the Scope Art Show at Art Basel in Miami in 2015 and in 2016, appeared on DR Aftenshowet, the biggest talkshow in Denmark.

Brandrup grew up in Holbæk, Denmark and went to Københavns Tekniske Skole to study graphic and web design. Although he was always attracted to traditional painting, Brandrup started to work in graffiti lettering when he was 15 years old, installing wood panels in his parent's backyard and covering them with his graffiti name KETS.

In 2008, Brandrup and his twin brother Morten Brandrup founded a design agency called Identity Provided, specializing in visual communication, branding, web design and corporate campaigns. Over the course of six years, they created the visual identity for several notable international corporate companies, including Steen & Strøm Department Store and Chiquita Brands International. In 2014, Identity Provided merged with a large parent design agency in Copenhagen called MeyerBukdahl so Brandrup could devote more time to his fine art.

In his murals and commercial installations, Brandrup combines the wild style lettering and shapes from graffiti with the graphic sensibility of design, making compositions that are "vibrant and playful yet structured in form." Brandrup attempts to find order and structure within the abstract universe in his work and has attracted the attention of major corporations in the process. He has worked on projects with American Express, LinkedIn, Heineken, Google and Nike, who hired him to paint a 10 x 10 canvas on the Santa Monica Pier surrounding their launch of NBA player Chris Paul's line of sneakers. Brandrup has exhibited his canvas work worldwide and in 2016 had a solo show at Ren Gallery entitled "Dream State" that coincided with World Art Day. His work has been written about in international publications including LA Weekly, the Los Angeles Times and Berlingske and was spotlit in the magazine Sleek as one of the most important contemporary artists to watch.

Thomas Fryd

Brandrup has collaborated with other artists, including Danish photographer and shooting director Thomas Fryd. For their multimedia show entitled Emerging Alchemy, Brandrup and Fryd worked together on 15 paintings and two sculptures. Fryd took surreal photographs of dynamic human activity which Brandrup transformed by printing them on canvas and adding layers of spray paint and acrylics with his signature style.

Bumblebee

Bumblebee, contemporary artist in Los Angeles, and Brandrup met at an art show at Corey Helford Gallery. A street artist, Bumblebee is associated with figurative designs, razor sharp stencils, and a controlled color palette whereas Brandrup, more aligned with graffiti, is known for his unformed shapes, vibrant colors and wild-style lettering. The artists decided to collaborate on a series of murals, blending their disparate aesthetics in unexpected ways. The first of these three murals was on an 80 ft wall in South Central, the second, a private commission at the Google headquarters in Santa Monica and the third, an outdoor wall at the Container Yard in the Downtown Arts District that was photographed for the Los Angeles Times.