Collection: Obey - Frank Shepard Fairey

(Charleston 1970)

Born in South Carolina in 1970, passionate about skateboarding and drawing, Shepard grew up listening to punk-rock music, observing the covers of some historic groups such as the Sex Pistols and letting himself be "inspired" by the graphics of brands such as Santa Cruz or Powell-Peralta . In 1989, while still a student at the Rhodes Island School of Design, he covered the city of Providence with over a million stickers depicting the face of the French wrestler André the Giant, but it was after seeing the graffiti in New York that, as he himself declared, he understands that he wants to bring art to the streets.

Obey's creative inspiration comes from the fusion of his background with a passion for early 20th-century Soviet graphics. His artistic production combines different languages, from graphics to photography, passing through collage and illustration, however the ideal place in which to express his freedom of expression, as an artist and as a man, remains the walls.

Shepard has never been afraid to link his image to social and political issues: he supported the Obama campaign with the famous "Hope" manifesto, he sided against any war and with the sale of his works he subsidizes various organizations fighting to reduce the climate crisis.

To date he has made hundreds of drawings on the walls of cities all over the world. His works are exhibited in the collections of some famous museums such as the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the Institute of Contemporary Art in Boston, the MoMA in New York and the Victoria and Albert Museum in London.