Keith Haring

Keith Haring

“Tree of Life”

Big Idea/Subject: Life and Death

Major Theme: Celebration, social commentary

Medium/Presentation: Painting – acrylic on canvas, 120″ x 144″

Visual Components: Color, line, repetition, rhythm, form, movement

As the title states, Haring’s piece depicts his version of a tree of life. The artist’s style is very heavy, with large color blocks and thick outlines. The color choices of this piece are very smart because the hues of the three colors are very warm, with the background and the foreground colors being complementary. When creating this piece, Haring thought a lot about the concepts of heaven vs. hell – hand in hand with life vs. death. This piece seems to be a celebration of life. The series of two to three lines around the forms makes the composition seem as if the entire art piece is buzzing with movement and energy. Knowing that the artist suffered from AIDs, it seems that this tree of life, with figures emerging from the leaves, is a representation of the unity of humanity. The figures are seething and intertwining into one another as if to blend groups of humans together.

Haring’s style of incorporating simple yet extremely recognizable figures and symbols is important for students to learn. Pop art is very much a part of culture and history. Teaching students about the radicalness of Keith Haring as an artist would be both fun and a learning experience. How does Haring use color to convey meaning in his artwork? What is the purpose of bold outlines? How does concept influence Haring’s artwork (even though his designs are relatively simple)? How does knowing about what Haring was going through in his personal life (i.e. having AIDs) affect the meaning of his artwork? The concepts behind his artwork would be great to cover with high school students, as well as discussing the importance of design he uses. Using Haring’s artwork to introduce the use of color and symbols to create art, especially with bold outlines, would be great for elementary students.

Sources used: http://onthetrendyroad.com/2013/04/14/keith-haring/, http://www.haring.com/!/art-work/68#.UivBChZsjdk, http://www.haring.com/!/selected_writing/heaven-and-hell#.UivFfxZsjdk