Ron English

A contemporary American artist and illustrator, born 1966 he is known for his blends with visuals and political and consumerist statements. Along with artists such as Banksy, he has took part in illegal public art campaigns since the 1980's. English targets commercial brands and 'liberates' them with his own messages. He takes large commercial icons and then turns them around so that they attack the very image that they are trying to sell; for example with English's McDonalds themed art work consisting of the McDonald's 'Ronald McDonald' but a supersized version, attacking the fast food image and linking it to obesity. He has also done similar work with Kellogg's 'Tony the Tiger' again making the children's character appear to be supersized and advertising Kellogg's Frosties 'Full of Fat'.

 

Here English has taken a famous painting and recreated his own version but again using his own messages and the big iconic brands people know and love. The McDonalds logo in this piece has been placed on the top of a church, I think that this painting is symbolising how people have come accustom to McDonalds and how it has become a regular and normal thing in people's life style. The fast food industry is growing along with the cases of obesity and so there is a lot of controversy about fast food, I think that English dose well to highlight just how bad the big brands are in the food industry and highlights that they are still fast food giants and no matter how much they advertise about their new range of salads; and I think that his work shows this well because of the way his work portrays the brands, in a ay that he's almost mocking them.

 

 

Ron English as well as Shepard Fairey, also produced work for Obama's Presidential campaign in 2008.  The piece; 'Abraham Obama' was produced by English in 2008 and is possibly one of his most significant pieces of art. For the piece English combined America's 16th and 44th president to create a combined head made up of features from Abraham Lincoln and Barack Obama.