Keith Haring wasn't afraid to speak the truth.

Andy Mouse by Keith Haring

1985, Acrylic on Canvas, 60 x 60 inches

Everyone knows who Keith Haring is, or at least you have seen his work. I mean shoot, it comes preloaded on a ton of cell phones these days as backgrounds.  But, Keith Haring is the guy that people should stop and think about once in a while. He was mostly a graffiti artist, though also associated with pop art. Plus, you know he was cool as he was friends with people like Madonna, Andy Warhol, and Jean-Michel Basquiat. That's like saying in present day that you hang out daily with Beyonce, Damien Hirst, and oh I don't know, Oprah- you're just THAT cool. Besides his social group, Keith was amazing. He was that guy who didn't care what the world thought of him, he didn't care what you thought about his personal choices, and he had a passion to advocate for important causes. He did in 1990, at age 31, from AIDs-related causes. He spent his last years of life raising money for AIDs reasearch and creating a visual language expressing love, hate, drugs, war, and sex.

Andy Mouse isn't a work that isn't a typical Haring work, but as soon as I saw it I fell in love. First of all it combines some of my favorite things; Andy Warhol, Micky Mouse, and Pop art. Haring did several works of Warhol, similar to this one and I think they are so clever. He took two iconic images and combined them into a style of his own- what a genius.

Crack is Wack by Keith Haring

1986, Mural, New York City

This is more typical of Ketih's widely known style. This was a mural he did in NYC and I just love it. It has all of his classic symbols (by the way, if you are interested in symbolic meanings, Haring is great fun to research) and expresses a straight forward message. Keith wasn't afraid to be in your face.

Keith Haring wasn't afraid to speak the truth.