Laron Bickerstaff, born in 1971, creates radiant portraiture and stream-of-consciousness text-based art. He communicates with American Sign Language and is deeply aware of the visual characteristics of language. In his text-based work, he mixes his own observations with a pop-culture-influenced love of the words that populate everyday life: celebrities, stores, brand names, institutions. Many of his signature works combine bright geometric shapes with abstract and stylized figures. His drawings of ASL hand gestures have become a much loved and iconic visualization of American Sign Language. Bickerstaff joined the Creativity Explored studio in 1997.