No 'hope' for Donald Trump in Shepherd Fairey's new range

Shepherd Fairey's artwork 'We the People' (Shepherd Fairey/Amplifier Foundation)
One of Shepherd Fairey's new images (Shepherd Fairey/Amplifier Foundation)

The artist behind the iconic Barack Obama 'HOPE' image has unveiled a new range of posters for his replacement, Donald Trump.

But Shepherd Fairey's no fan of the President-elect, who'll become President on Saturday (NZ time).

"There is a lot of division right now. Trump is not a healer," he told public broadcaster PBS.

One of Shepherd Fairey's new artworks (Shepherd Fairey/Amplifier Foundation)
One of Shepherd Fairey's new artworks (Shepherd Fairey/Amplifier Foundation)

The new images use a similar colour scheme to the famous Obama poster, and feature a Muslim woman in a headscarf, an African-American child and a Latina woman. Each comes with the phrase 'We the People' - the first three words of the US Constitution.

"The idea was to take back a lot of this patriotic language in a way that we see is positive and progressive, and not let it be hijacked by people who want to say that the American flag or American concepts only represent one narrow way of thinking," said Fairey.

One of Shepherd Fairey's new artworks (Shepherd Fairey/Amplifier Foundation)
One of Shepherd Fairey's new artworks (Shepherd Fairey/Amplifier Foundation)

He teamed up with the non-profit Amplifier Foundation and started a Kickstarter campaign to raise enough money to take out full-page ads in The Washington Post featuring the posters. Hoping for US$60,000, they've so far raised more than US$800,000.

Inauguration protesters without the time or skills to make a placard can just rip one out of the paper, says Fairey, who last year released a 1984-style image of Donald Trump called 'Demagogue'.

Shepherd Fairey's 'Demagogue' (Shepherd Fairey)
Shepherd Fairey's 'Demagogue' (Shepherd Fairey)

But Fairey wants to focus on the positive with his latest works.

"I think 1984 is a really important work, and presenting Trump as a form of Big Brother, I think was antagonistic but not over the top," Fairey told PBS.

"At this point, though, we have Trump, so what's the antidote? The antidote is not attacking Trump more."

Two other images have also been created for the campaign - Jessica Sabogal's 'We the Resilient, which features a Native American elder, and 'We the Indivisible' by Ernesto Yerena.

Newshub.