The Work of Artist Keith Haring

One of my recent fascinations in art-history is the New York 1980's artist Keith Haring. I don't mean to identify him first as being from a certain decade or city but that's just how I get into artists sometimes in my art history journey. And in his case unfortunately he was only really active during that decade, he died much too early at the age of 31 in 1990. He started in New York like Basquiat, painting on the streets and in the subway creating public works of art that soon would be taken by audiences anyway they could manage to lift it off of the 'public space' in order to capitalize on it.

The more I view his work and the more I listen to him talk about it, the deeper my fascination becomes. I really wasn't expecting him to be a direct influence on my own work but it really has become that. Even before I really started to study his work, just seeing it in an offhand way was a big influence. Not too dissimilar to my experience of the work from the aforementioned Jean-Michel Basquiat. Why both are an influence is simple; they have a direct way of breaking down symbols to represent the experience of being human. Simplifying  (deceptively simple) human communication and life by using symbols, figures, and a limited color pallet (usually not always). Broken-down abstraction of symbols and colors, figures, representing direct human experience; I mean it's brilliant.

 Another reason it's been an influence on my work is that because for a long time (I might of gone into this point before in a past post) I worked solely in complete abstract textures, with a direct intentional non-use of any kind of recognizable form whatsoever in attempt to reach into my sub-super-unconscious mind. But my point is that seeing the work of these two artists, Haring and Basquiat; inspired me to come back to working with figures and symbols. It helped me realize that you can use recognizable symbols to tell your story, and it doesn't limit the ephemeral quality of your work. I mean I always strived for limitlessness in my paintings, but using symbols and forms doesn't necessarily imply limits. Maybe it does, but the trade off that you get; being able to convey relatable emotions and stories to people more than outweighs what limits of perception you force by using 'known' symbols.

I could go on and on in my way of trying to talk about his work but seeing it for yourself is a much better way of paying tribute to the talented Keith Haring. I use the following videos from Youtube for this, in a 'fair-use' manner. If any person or group, the Haring family, the video makers, or any one else claims copyright to these videos and objects to their use on this blog-post, email me and I am more than happy to take it down. I am only paying tribute in an effort to raise awareness of one of my favorite artists and am in no way profiting directly from their use here on this site.