Frank Shepard Fairey (born February 15, 1970) is an American contemporary artist, activist and founder of OBEY Clothing who emerged from the skateboarding scene.

The website also says, by contrast, that those who are familiar with the sticker find humor and enjoyment from it and that those who try to analyze its meaning only burden themselves and may condemn the art as an act of vandalism from an evil, underground cult.

Originally intending the sticker campaign to gain fame among his classmates and college peers, Fairey says: At first I was only thinking about the response from my clique of art school and skateboard friends.

When I started to see reactions and consider the sociological forces at work surrounding the use of public space and the insertion of a very eye-catching but ambiguous image, I began to think there was the potential to create a phenomenon.

After graduation, he founded a small printing business in Providence, Rhode Island, called Alternate Graphics, specializing in T-shirt and sticker silkscreens, which afforded Fairey the ability to continue pursuing his own artwork.

[29] Fairey has also designed the covers for The Smashing Pumpkins' album Zeitgeist,[30] Flogging Molly's CD/DVD Whiskey on a Sunday, Led Zeppelin's compilation Mothership and movie Celebration Day, and Anthrax's The Greater Of Two Evils.

In 2006, Fairey contributed eight vinyl etchings to a limited-edition series of 12" singles by post-punk band Mission of Burma and has also done work for the musical group Interpol.

In 2006, Fairey joined NYC based Ad agency Project 2050[32] as founding Creative Director and was featured on the cover of Advertising Age magazine.

Fairey was arrested on February 7, 2009, on his way to the premiere of his show at the Institute of Contemporary Art[43] in Boston, Massachusetts, on two outstanding warrants related to graffiti.

"[7] In 2011, Time Magazine commissioned Fairey to design its cover to honor "The Protester" as Person of the Year in the wake of the Arab Spring, Occupy Wall Street and other social movements around the world.

[47] In July 2015, Fairey was arrested and detained at Los Angeles International Airport, after passing through customs, on a warrant for allegedly vandalizing 14 buildings in Detroit.

[48] On September 17, 2015, the Jacob Lewis Gallery presented Shepard Fairey's exhibition "On Our Hands", his first solo opening in New York City in five years.

[50][51][52] Fairey created a series of posters supporting Barack Obama's 2008 candidacy for President of the United States, including the iconic "HOPE" portrait.

"[86] Fairey created a mutt version of the red, white, and blue poster, donating it to help support pet adoptions, from an image of a rescued shaggy dog taken by photographer Clay Myers.

Four hundred limited edition prints were offered by Adopt-A-Pet.com, a nonprofit organization that helps shelters, humane societies and rescue groups advertise their homeless pets to potential adopters.

[88] In 2014, Fairey painted a towering mural, 9 stories high, paying tribute to Nelson Mandela and the 25th anniversary of the Purple Rain Protest.

"It is a huge exclamation point downtown..." said Patrick Gaspard, American Ambassador to South Africa, which makes us remember the entire liberation struggle and the remarkably peaceful transition to freedom Nelson Mandela achieved.

[118] In June 2013, a feature documentary called The Human Trial about the quest to cure type 1 diabetes caught the attention of Fairey who then created the movie poster in order to raise funds for the film.

Proceeds from the annual gala and auction benefitted the Foundation's signature arts education and gallery programs, which directly serve 2,300 students each year.

[120] In June 2009, Fairey created a poster in support of the plight of Aung San Suu Kyi to bring awareness to the human rights cause in Burma.

A majority of the proceeds went to the National Day Labor Organizing Network (NDLON) and Puente, a grassroots community group that fights for human dignity.

Fairey created an original print called "The Future is Unwritten" to commemorate Rauschenburg's dedication to important social issues and the mission of the Coalition for the Homeless.

Austin, Texas–based graphic designer Baxter Orr did his own take on Fairey's work in a piece called Protect, with the iconic Obey Giant face covered by a SARS respiratory mask.

[147] Originally, Fairey had claimed his HOPE poster was based on a 2006 copyrighted photo of then-Senator Barack Obama seated next to actor George Clooney, taken in April 2006 by Mannie Garcia on assignment for the Associated Press, which wanted credit and compensation for the work.

[152] In February 2009, Fairey filed a federal lawsuit against the Associated Press, seeking a declaratory judgment that his use of the AP photograph was protected by the fair use doctrine and so did not infringe their copyright.

"[157][158] On September 7, 2012, Fairey was sentenced to 300 hours of community service, ordered to pay a $25,000 federal fine, and placed on probation for two years by U.S. Magistrate Judge Frank Maas.

[168] Andrew Michael Ford, the director of Ad Hoc Art, said that Fairey's practice does not "match up" in the minds of people who view his work.

[169] Artists Mark Vallen, Lincoln Cushing, Josh MacPhee, and Favianna Rodriguez have documented that Fairey has appropriated work by Koloman Moser, Ralph Chaplin, Pirkle Jones, Rupert Garcia, Rene Mederos, Félix Beltrán, and Gary Grimshaw, among others.

[171] Jamie O'Shea criticizes Vallen's approach for a "nearly ubiquitous lack of understanding of the artist’s use of appropriated imagery in his work and the longstanding historical precedent for this mode of creative expression," in addition to being masked in a thin "veneer of obvious envy in most cases".

[174] Bloggers have criticized Fairey for accepting commissions from corporations such as Saks Fifth Avenue, for which his design agency produced illustrations inspired by Constructivism and Alexander Rodchenko.