Having been harassed and arrested by agents of the United States' government as he perpetrated his graffiti art from coast to coast, Shepard Fairy has since earned the respect and gratitude of a future American president. Using the visual vocabulary of popular revolution, the humble DIY poster and sticker maker-cum-revered gallery and populist street artist used his graphic skill to transform Barack Obama from a presidential hopeful to a visionary icon.
But now that the future leader of our government is one of his choosing, Shepard Fairey is questioning his own message of dissent. In essence, what does a rebellious artist do when the central entity he was rebelling against is controlled by a commander-in-chief he helped elect?
SuicideGirls called Shepard at his Los Angeles studio to find out. In our interview he also talks about his Obama image, the psychology behind it, how he had to make a unique version that hadn't previously been distributed by illegal means for use by the official Obama campaign, and how he self-funded his own campaign of Hope for which the artist printed up a staggering 300,000 stickers and 500,000 posters!
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