Barry McGee

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Barry McGee (born 1966) is an American visual artist known for graffiti and painted installations. He helped start the Mission School art movement in San Francisco. He also goes by Twist, Ray Fong, Bernon Vernon, and P.Kin.

McGee was born in San Francisco, California, and is of Chinese and Irish descent. His father worked at an auto body shop. He grew up in the Bay Area and finished high school at El Camino High School in South San Francisco. He studied at the San Francisco Art Institute and graduated in 1991 with a focus on painting and printmaking.

He became a central figure in San Francisco’s graffiti scene in the late 1980s and 1990s. His street work is known for bold, black-and-white graffiti and later for painted installations in galleries, museums, and festivals around the world. His art blends public, social themes of urban life with a highly personal, detailed painting style. He often creates installations that combine large paintings with photographs of other graffiti writers and draws on Islamic tile patterns, vernacular sign painting, and sometimes caricatures of the destitute. He has also painted on objects like empty liquor bottles, spray cans, and wrecked vehicles, and has collaborated with Amaze on many projects.

In his personal life, McGee was married to fellow artist Margaret Kilgallen from 1999 until her death in 2001; they had a daughter named Asha. He married artist Clare Rojas in 2005.

Notable moments include a 1999 incident where a large mural he helped create—made of 300 pieces and funded by local galleries—was stolen from a San Francisco building and never recovered. In 2004, he painted “Smash the State” on the walls of Supervisor Matt Gonzalez’s City Hall office. He was also involved in a 2006 controversy over Adidas Y1 HUF sneakers, which he said depicted a self-portrait of himself as a child.