Critical Review
Liberty (blue) is a screen print released as an edition of 25 in 2013, inspired by a mural of the same name by the artist in New York City).
Liberty (blue) is a signed screen print, printed in white, blue and black, depicting a stick man with one arm outstretched. It is based on a mural of the same name painted in New York City.
Stik’s socially-conscious art has taken him around the world. In the foreword to his 2015 coffee table book, he remarks: “As word got out, I was able to show solidarity with other causes around the world: the civil rights movement in America, renewable energy in Norway, recycling in Japan and the housing crisis in the UK”. Liberty attests to this growing international approach.
With one arm defiantly extended upwards, evoking the raised clenched fist symbol of the civil rights movement, the stick man of Liberty stands steadily and powerfully. The mural from which the print series takes its name was painted on the edge of Tompkins Square Park, a place steeped in a history of protest. The image is inexorably linked to the several Stik works concerned with making space for the marginalized, such as A Couple Hold Hands In The Street.
