New York Contemporary Artists Series: Keith Haring Whose Canvas is New York

Continuing the series, we land on Keith Haring. Cash Myricks interests us in his works throughout New York in which it can be seen almost everywhere. Although Haring’s art could be seen from different places around New York, museums and galleries also held the artist’s work. Cash Myricks tells us the story of Keith Haring.

Born 4th of May 1958, Haring lived out his childhood in Reading, Pennsylvania. At a young age, the kid showed interest in drawing, taking inspiration from his dad, who was a comic book artist, and the popular Disney movies at the time. His motivations for art would later stem out to be his particular style.

During highschool, he enrolled in the Ivy School of Professional Art in Pittsburgh. However, as time went by, he dropped out, losing interest in commercial graphic art. As days went on, he took to New York after a fateful subway ride showed him his would-be canvas. While riding in the train, he saw a black wall where an advertisement was supposed to be. Immediately, it struck him as the perfect canvas and it then continued to influence his style of art.

As years passed on, Haring’s art had taken a more solid shape as it continued to influence hundreds more contemporary artists today. He advocated for different diseases, mainly AIDS, using his style of pop art and graffiti had been more well-known. However, in a stroke of irony, he was diagnosed with AIDS which would eventually take him.

Haring’s life had been more than eventful and many artists took to his art style and canvasses. New Yorker Cash Myricks reminds us of the feat of one man who made a city his medium and more.