Chocolate Buddha 5 Keith Haring

KEITH HARING, CHOCOLATE BUDDHA 5, CHOCOLATE BUDDHA SERIES, SIGNED LITHOGRAPH, EDITION OF 90, 1989

Taken from his Chocolate Buddha series (1989), Chocolate Buddha 5 is a print that focuses on intertwined form and fluid pattern. This print shows a multitude of figures, interconnected and flowing into one another to create a pattern of amorphous bodies. Haring uses bold dark outlines in this print and loosely rendered blue lines to fill out the shapes.

Much like Haring’s Growing series, Chocolate Buddha 5 shows a number of figures in a complex interconnected system, to underline the idea that working together and forming community can be more powerful than working alone. Haring’s use of fluid, organic shapes against the gestural blue lines across the image create a print that is bursting with energy and vigour.

Chocolate Buddha 5 is typical of Haring’s later works that continued to use simplified forms but in far more complex and abstract compositions. There is a level of symmetry used in this print across the vertical axis that allows the viewer’s eye to fluidly follow the multitude of forms across the image surface. In this focus on pattern over realism with his use of fluid and gestural line, Haring creates a rhythmic composition that seemingly moves on the canvas.

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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.