Critical Review
Liberty (green) is a signed screen print featuring a lone stickman in a defiant pose).
While Stik’s figures can often seem withdrawn, anxious and uncertain, the stickman of Liberty bucks this trend with a strong and unflinching stance.
Liberty juxtaposes Stik's characteristically simplistic mark making with a deliberate sense of place to produce a striking piece. There is a visual resemblance with the Statue of Liberty, the famed landmark that Stik's figure mirrors in stance, yet this piece also has a particular resonance tied to its location.
This clear impetus to reflect human stories on walls of the city, and subsequently in prints inspired by his street art is a thread which has defined the artist’s work from the outset. He states: “It was people from the neighbourhood who helped me get back on my feet, and the guidance of my mentor that enabled me to become a full time artist. The support I felt was overwhelming and ‘community’ became the central theme of my work. By adding a simple human presence to the streets, I found I could humanise the structures of the city and bring attention to the issues surrounding them”.
