Adobe X Keith Haring
Black Intersectional Lives Matter
Credits
Client: Adobe
Concept and Illustration: Jacki Reed
Software: Photoshop, Adobe X Keith Haring brush pack
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Background
In celebration of the contributions of the late Keith Haring, Adobe collaborated with the estate to release a Photoshop brush set inspired by Haring’s painterly style. Since Haring’s art had strong ties to social justice, Adobe created a contest where artists all over the world must design a piece highlighting an important cause using the Keith Haring brush pack.
Objective
To create an artwork inspired by Keith Haring's work, that magnifies an important cause while exclusively using the Abobe X Keith Haring Photoshop brush pack.
Target Demographic
Audiences include Adobe’s panel, the Creative Cloud community, the community of the social cause my piece highlights
Solution/Project Description
Due to continuous civil injustice towards marginalized people, I chose to focus my piece on the underrepresented, intersectional identities in the Black Lives Matter Movement. Thus the piece is entitled “Intersectional Black Lives Matter”. It depicts representations of Black individuals whom each have multiple identities.
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These intersectional identities include skin tone, religion, gender, sexuality, physical/mental/developmental disabilities, body types, etc. I purposely wanted to highlight various forms of transgender and disabled people. Often these are not the type of identities advocated for when protesting for the protection of Black lives. My piece seeks to start a conversation for more advocacy for Black intersectional identities.
Sociopolitical Context
Using Adobe Photoshop and the provided custom Keith Haring brushes, I depicted 30 black individuals in the piece to represent the value of Black lives in America. Each person corresponds to each of the fifty states. 30 black people out of 50 states are shown because a continued history of injustice and lack of retribution has shown that Black people are still considered 3/5 of a person.
The term "3/5 of a person" is a direct reference to the Three-fifths Compromise, also known as the Great Compromise of 1787. In this agreement, representatives for the House were determined by a state's free population and 3/5 of its enslaved population. This distinction was created to stop the Colonial South from having too much delegate power. This was the first instance slave's lives were given a numerical value for political power. By using the same fraction in my piece, I illustrate that Black people still face injustices due to our low social value.
Color is only given to the figures to allude to the main takeaway of Black intersectionality, that “Before I am anything, I am Black.” The world sees the color of Black skin instead of seeing our identity as a whole.
Conceptual Development
Historical Significance and Inspiration
My concept had a major focus on Black LGBT identities. I took major inspiration from Keith Haring's work and other Queer activist art during the1980s Aids epidemic targeting the LGBT community.
Haring created a series of works depicting Queer relationships and other social issues. I took stylistic inspiration for my project from his 1984 piece entitled "Untitled". The psychedelic piece is an entanglement of extraterrestrial overlords and faceless humanoid worships. Haring is clearly making a statement on society's relationship to technology and the religious-like influence these media (as represented by television) has over our lives. From his work, I took inspiration from the square borders, simplistic color palette, and faceless figures. Instead of relying on the full image to give meaning to the figures. I wanted my figure's blank forms to act as a reinforcement of the overall message. They pop off the canvas, illustrated with the same brown color, to depict how Black intersectional identity is reduced to the perception of race alone.
For my entry piece, I was also inspired by the subtle queer symbolism in the works of American gay artist Felix Gonzalez-Torres. In his 1991 piece entitled “Untitled (Portrait of Ross in L.A.)", hundreds of colorful, individually wrapped pieces of candy are placed in a corner. The exact weight of the exhibit is equal to the weight of FGT's partner, Ross, who later died of aids. The exhibit is interactive, as audiences are encouraged to take a piece of candy, alluding to Ross's depleting health due to Aids. This focus on numbers and allegory was something I wanted to incorporate into my piece.
Significance to Me, as an Intersectional Artist
I created this piece to bring attention to the complexities of Black Intersectionality. As a person with many marginalized identities, I wanted to highlight the parts of Black identity that are normally not illustrated. My piece has a distinct focus on Black queer, disabled, neurodivergent, and/or lower-class people. I want to show the many ways Black people hold multiple marginalized identities.
Intersectional Research
I created a chart to lay out the intersectional identities of all the Black characters in my piece. When depicting “invisible disabilities” I looked for inspiration in the poetry, articles, and artwork of people with those disabilities. For example, I interviewed people with bipolar disorder to best illustrate the stages of mania and depression. For autism/ADHD, I drew on my own experiences with interests and hyper-fixations, conveying rotating fixations as a Rolodex. For dyslexia, I took some inspiration from the works of Dyslexic illustrator, Melvin Jarvis.
Caroline Raer
Charlotte Farhan
Melvin Jarvis
[Instagram@freakyfarm/]
Riia Talve (age 3)
Chart Layout
Black Intersectional Identity Breakdown
Click the quote icons on the image to learn about each character's unique intersectional identity. The more marginalized identities a person holds, the more ways they can be discriminated against and unjustly targeted.
Challenges
Since each character had multiple parts of their identity, I had to figure how to illustrate all of these elements without making the drawing feel cluttered. I had to find creative approaches to symbolize certain disabilities. For example, to convey a gay man with an eating disorder that likes astronomy, I had a character standing on a giant mirror, like it’s a scale to symbolize body issues while wearing a space helmet and triangle boxers. For complex depictions like a homeless Pagan artist with schizophrenia, I illustrated a character in a car full of paintings containing pagan imagery, and they are surrounded by a giant spider illusion. For sexuality and gender, I used more obvious representations like symbols, flags, and scars. To make each character feel more human, I also incorporated hobbies and professions in their depiction.
Result/Reception
While I did not win the contest, my piece received positive acclaim from several Adobe staff members and the Keith Haring estate itself. I also trended among LGBT and Black social circles and generated interest for future merchandise containing the artwork.