KEITH HARING, CHOCOLATE BUDDHA 4, CHOCOLATE BUDDHA SERIES, SIGNED LITHOGRAPH, EDITION OF 90, 1989
Chocolate Buddha 4 is a print from Keith Haring’s Chocolate Buddha series (1989) that shows a lively composition of organic linear shapes and figures. Using bold, rounded lines against a flat yellow backdrop, Haring creates a symmetrical image of an otherworldly plant-like form, anchored by sitting figures on either side.
Completed the year before Haring’s death, this late print amalgamates the artist’s clear-line figurative style with a more complex and integrated composition to form a highly abstracted image. Recalling styles of the ancient world such as Eastern Mandalas and Australian Aboriginal art, Chocolate Buddha 4 also shows influence from the European Modernists such as Miro, Klee and Matisse. This is notable from the way in which the print focuses on flat, richly coloured shapes and patterns that play out across the image surface.
Buddha 4 includes phallic and sperm-like illustrations that seemingly move across the print, injecting the print with a focus on male sexuality. In the later stage of his artistic career, themes around sex and HIV/AIDS dominated his work, just as it dominated Haring’s personal life after his own AIDS diagnosis in 1988.
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ABOUT KEITH HARING
Known for his bold graphic style and playful sense of humour, Keith Haring is one of the most influential and adored artists of the 20th century.
Born in Pennsylvania, in 1958, Haring was a talented draughtsman as a child and developed his cartoonish style at the hands of his father and the work of Walt Disney and Dr Seuss. However it would take some time before he realised he could marry this kind of drawing with being a fine artist. Upon graduating from high school he enrolled in a commercial art school before realising he had little interest in pursuing a career as an illustrator or graphic designer. After dropping out of college he joined the hippie movement and hitchhiked across the country where he made anti-Nixon t-shirts to pay for food and Grateful Dead tickets. Learn more about Keith Haring.
