“Ignorance = Fear” Keith Haring, 1989

Keith Haring (b. 1958, d. 1990) was an American Neo-Expressionist artist known for his Social Activism portrayed through vibrant, pop-art images. Haring’s work was especially influential and synonymous with the AID’s crisis that peaked horrifically from the late seventies to nineties. The disease in particular devastated the LGBT community, however the Reagan Administration refused to act on the crisis until it was too late (by 1991, 60,000 people had died as a result of AIDs in the US)

In protest to the alarming lack of action taken by the government to protect these communities from what could have been a preventable outbreak, Haring produced several eye-catching prints like the above to spread awareness and alert the public to the severity of the disease which the artist would also tragically succumb to.

The above screen print depicts the iconic, cartoon figures featured in a majority of Haring’s work. The three yellow subjects outlines simply in black; all appear to be caught in urgent motion as highlighted by the cartoonish curving lines hovering around their bodies. Each is posing purposefully as though covering where eyes, ears or mouth would have been placed to emphasis the government’s refusal to acknowledge the severity of the crisis. The bright orange and blue tones create an alert tone to the print and draw the audience or a passer-by (as many of Haring’s work was posted in subway stations and streets to make it accessible to the public) and emphasise the piece’s purpose as an informative, political message.

“Aleppo IV- The Aleppo Series” Brian Maguire, 2017

Brian Maguire (b.1950) is an Irish painter who throughout his career has travelled the world, documenting the morbid aftermath of war- adding these works to ongoing series ominously entitled “War Changes Its Address”.

“Aleppo IV” (2017) is one of a fourteen acrylic paintings added to this series after the artist’s trip to one of Syria’s biggest war-torn cities, Aleppo. The largely, muted landscape piece places the audience in the centre of a city street, flanked by bombed out buildings. Maguire creates the illusion that the street is endless, using converging lines to draw the eye further down the ruined road and highlighting the colossal damage inflicted by the ongoing Civil War in Syria.

I found the artists expressive brush stroke to enforce the chaos of the derelict city scape. Violent, quicks attacks created by the brush tip are pierced black across the pale walls, alluding horrifically to the remains of bullets and gun fire into what was once homes and grocery stores. In contrast to the sharp dots, the cement structures are barely characterised by their loose, watery lines and blocks of greyscale. This washed out palette emphasises the lifeless and drained tone of the painting. Windows and destructed have been quickly defined by dark tones, reflecting the sudden bursts of violent fighting which had clearly taken place on this street like many in the city. The artist even allows the paint excess to run of the canvas as though the buildings are sinking into the ground as they had crumbled before the artist in real time.

I thought Maguire’s form of protest art was so successful and fascinating as unlike most that I had viewed, as I was shocked to realise that the painting was completely devoid of figures- and thus, human life. The artist’s emphasis on the dark, empty windows and pavements mounted by debris force the disturbed audience to realise that these buildings were once someone’s home, rather than just another desensitising image plastered on the news with the aim of exhausting the public.