Shepard Fairey (b. 1970) is one of the most significant figures at the intersection of graphic design, street art, and political activism working in America today. Emerging from the skateboarding and punk scenes of the late 1980s, he launched the OBEY Giant campaign in 1989 with a simple sticker bearing the face of wrestler André the Giant and the instruction to OBEY — a project in phenomenology that asked why people comply with images of authority, and what happens when you make the mechanism visible.
The campaign grew into a global visual movement that has covered walls in over 100 countries. His graphic language — high-contrast portraiture, constructivist composition, the visual vocabulary of propaganda turned back on itself — is among the most immediately recognisable in contemporary art. The Barack Obama Hope poster, produced for the 2008 presidential campaign and described by the Smithsonian Institution as one of the most iconic images in American political history, brought his visual intelligence to an audience of hundreds of millions.
Fairey's practice extends across street interventions, fine art prints, large-scale murals, and mixed media works that engage directly with environmentalism, human rights, music culture, and the mechanics of persuasion. He founded Studio Number One and has collaborated with artists including Banksy and Damien Hirst. His work is held in the permanent collections of the Museum of Modern Art, the Victoria and Albert Museum, and the Smithsonian.
Available through Creed Gallery, Ascot, for collectors across Berkshire, Surrey, and London.
