Political Activism Through Art

Shepard Fairey is an American contemporary artist. He began as a skateboard and t-shirt artist in the 1990’s and is now known by the Institute of Contemporary Art, in Boston as todays best known and influential street artist.  Fairey’s work is displayed in the Museum of modern art in New York and the Victoria and Albert museum in London.

Images courtesy of http://www.shepardfaireyprints.com/

This artwork was produced by Shepard Fairey for the Active campaign 2007 in the United States, to raise awareness for children kept in captivity for slavery in Uganda.
Today Fairey is an influential contemporary street artist combining art with political activism.

Fairey combines strong reds and oranges in his backgrounds with  simple black lines to create the outline of faces and figures.  The detailed motif designs provide a contrast to the simplicity of the main focus point of each picture.  Fairey's graphic designs capture the 3 dimensions through use of light, contrast and colour.  Each artwork exhibits political activism and intent. 

This is a multimedia piece, acyrillic on canvas as the main medium and screenprinting, of the freedom fist, suitably joins the two portraits and the four canvases together. Inspiration for the artwork came from Shepard Fairey's work as above.  The artist's intent is to create awareness of Aung San Suu Kyi being released from over 15 years of home arrest in Burma because she won an election in 1991.  The smaller portrait of Michael Franti, a singer, songwriter, poet and composer from the United States represents the strong political views and lyrics he sings.  The name of this artwork "Power to the Peaceful" are lyrics written by Michael Franti.

Power to the Peaceful
By Heather White