Gavin Shapiro is a digital artist whose approach is to produce 3D animations that make the viewer smile. He focuses primarily on playful conceptual works that explore how we can use digital tools to confront our expectations of what is possible in a traditionally physical art world.   His works are created at the intersection of mathematics, surrealist architecture, psychology, and animal analysis. 

Gavin began his career as an animated graphic designer in 2009 and has since lived in New York, Osaka, and Paris, working on a wide variety of projects, including motion design art animations but also television shows, commercials, outdoor displays, and large-scale stage visuals. His personal work, published under the name “Shapiro500”, has been used as visuals at music festivals and concerts around the world, and has been displayed on giant screens in art exhibitions in New York, Paris and Tokyo. Gavin Shapiro’s animations have accumulated hundreds of millions of views on Instagram, Facebook, Reddit, and Giphy.

This work is from the “Shapiro500” project, an ongoing visual project begun in 2019 as a study of the artist. The project has gradually evolved into a vibrant and varied series of infinite looping virtual worlds designed to “elicit happiness from its viewers.”