beauty call

MUJER FATAL MURAL

Shepard Fairey has a powerful and varied integration of design that covers all aspects of our visual popular culture from political art and fashion to street art and museum installations. Fairey works in a wide variety of media such as screen prints, stencils, stickers, illustrations, collages, and works on wood, metal and canvas.  The core content of Fairey’s work is to draw attention to the hierarchies and all the abuses of power, politics and the commodification of culture.

EYE ALERT RED COLLAGE

I find it inspiring that Fairey is committed to creating work that has a powerful meaning for his audience. He has created a cultural phenomenon through his art and, more importantly, stimulates conversation and political discussions world wide.

DUALITY OF HUMANITY II

In this piece, The Duality of Humanity II, a child holds a gun in his hand and wears a flower in his hat. A part of the Duality of Humanity series, this work focuses on anti war propaganda influenced by Vietnam war. His works showcases women, children soldiers and weapons bearing peace signs, or peace signs comprised of military effects. It’s clear that Fairey sees a strong parallel between the Vietnam war and the Iraq war and creats art that highlights the tragic similarities between the two.

Fairey feels his work exemplifies, “the human struggle between good and bad, hope and fear”.

MAKE ART NOT WAR

What I love is the way Fairey  builds off of precedents set by artists such as Andy Warhol and Keith Haring.  Through doing so he disrupts what is socially ‘approved’ about art and business, muddling the distinctions between fine art and commercial art.

The artist explains his driving motivation: “The real message behind most of my work is ‘question everything’.”

Images via Obey Giant