My "Favorite" Painting

Hmmm, ok so for my “favorite painting” I decided more on an artist than on an actual painting itself. The painting pictured along with this blog post is actually my favorite of many shown at an exhibit in New York City at the Jonathan Levine Gallery 6/19/2007. The exhibited artist: Shepard Fairey. This show was called “E Plurbis Venom”. Shepard Fairey is best known for his Guerilla marketing campaigns as well as his iconic street art that has gotten him to where he is today. Shepard does almost all of his work with stencils and spray paint. For instance on the work I’ve presented here, Shepard used stencils for the majority of the work. I believe that the exception here would be the work around the picture itself (meant to look like US currency design) which I beleive has been printed. Either way this work is absolute genius to me. It may not be your brush and stroke type of painting, but it is a “painting” none the less. Spray paint definitely has a different look feel texture and durability than any of the paints discussed in our class. That being said, spray paint is very hard to control, thus the use of stencils for the majority of its uses in Shepard’s work. Spray paint can also be used without stencils, just not in the work I’ve presented here. Shepard Fairey is also well known for his depiction of Andre the Giant in his logo/branding for the company Obey. If you examine Shepard’s work, it is plain to see that his style consists of repeated imagery, iconic pictures, figures, and the use of silhouettes. Shepard uses these attributes to demand your attention, which is most likely why he’s been contracted out by major corporations such as Pepsi, and even done movie posters and cd covers for some of his favorite artists. Back to this work; I would say that the paint in combination with the bordering print can almost qualify as a collage even though it doesn’t look like your standard collage. On top of that Shepard Fairey has many works where actual newspaper collage has been worked in and faded or hidden. Although Shepard isn’t by any means your classical painter or producer, he definitely is a contemporary artist that can be looked at as a modern day artist. I still don’t know if most would call him a painter, but he does paint with spray paint and does create art……so to me he is a modern day painter. Finally I would like to invite anyone reading this post to feel free to do a simple google image search on Shepard Fairey. He has some of the most thought provoking art, at least for me. For instance read everything in the picture I’ve presented right down to how he spells it. What does it all mean……and the color scheme? Japanese sunrise for the background (reminiscent of the Japanese Kamikaze style headbands etc.) Anyway, just wanted to get the word out about Shepard Fairey. Check it out