David Hardaker's name seems to be on everyone's lips lately, and there's no surprise as to why the figurative painter has earned the respect of his peers. He has an excellent eye for line and color and a sense of humor about his work. (His Lost Monsters series, a collection of small portraits of alien creatures, features a backstory he made up for his daughter about a megalomaniacal Austrian professor who crafted his minions from old toys and chewing gum.) Hardaker's work often includes copyright-protected imagery, which, through mass production, he considers part of the cultural landscape and so open to fair use. The owner of the Avis Frank Gallery, Hardaker produces only a limited number of works annually, making each more prized by collectors.