Life Study of B. B. King petite

Daniel Edwards is an Assistant Professor of Sculpture at CSU Stanislaus. His works address celebrity and popular culture in ways that often stir controversy. The release of his art is generally accompanied by a press release. Edwards includes the idea of promotion and associative fame in the marketing of his art.

Past public sculpture commissions by Edwards include Landmark for Peace: The Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert F. Kennedy Memorial in Indianapolis.

Edwards got his start as a mask maker in 1980 working for Death Studios in La Porte, Indiana, where he received his first sculpture training from Jeff Keim. He sculpted the comic character Zippy the Pinhead for Death Studios in 1983 under the guidance of its creator Bill Griffith. From 1981 to 1984, other works by Edwards for Death Studios were published in Starlog, Fangoria, Cinemagic, Heavy Metal, and Questar.

In 1985, at the invitation of fashion illustrator Antonio Lopez, Edwards made his first visit to New York City. Edwards frequently hung out at Antonio’s studio from 1985 to 1986, where he was occasionally encouraged to draw alongside Antonio, from the models hired to model for Antonio’s 1001 Arabian Nights. In 1986, Edwards was briefly introduced to Andy Warhol by Antonio at New York’s Palladium, where Lopez and Warhol were judging a beauty contest.  It was there that Antonio suggested that Edwards enroll at Warhol’s new school, The New York Academy of Art.

On a scholarship paid for by Andy Warhol’s estate, Edwards attended the New York Academy of Art from 1988 to 1990.

Often vilified for his use of celebrity, called “Shock Artist” by the New York Post and “prankish and frolicsome” by the New York Times, while winning such dubious honors as Sports Illustrated’s “This Week’s Sign of The Apocalypse,” The Art Newspaper’s Bartlebooth award, as well as Sporting News calling for “the artist’s head under a Guillotine,” Edwards’s artwork has also been seen as prophetic and consistent in its ability to humanize social issues that the media and public have trouble addressing.