My intentions for the project were to experiment with the use of propaganda and then to modernise this style of graphic art. I also intended to introduce an air of sarcasm into my artwork. My final series of screen prints depicts the 45th president of the United States Donald Trump authoritatively speaking with the words underneath such as ‘Hair, Despair, Nope and Hopeless’. These words are contradictory to the authoritative image of the president in their non-serious manner and mock his personal perception of himself against the one portrayed by the media, the public and his opponents.
This was the first time I had used the method of screen printing and the prints I produced are not the seamless, high quality I would have initially wished my prints to be in. The layers of the prints are slightly miss matched leaving some of my developmental prints with a blurred effect that adds an extra layer to the print texture which I believe complicates the simple clean aesthetic lines of the print to a point that is not necessary for this style of print. Throughout this project I have taken clear influence from the artists Shepard Fairey and Eric Tan via their propaganda means of stylisation. Eric Tan is known for his use of bold, almost comic book style of shading through lines and varying tones of skin this being something that influenced my work. My main inspiration here is from Shepard Fairey’s Hope Campaign that he created for the 2008 Obama Presidency Campaign I am mocking the campaign by changing its wording and pictorial representation. I have combined the formatting of Fairey’s Hope Campaign with the fine detailing and line shading of Tan’s style.
