LOS ANGELES (AFP) — Shepard Fairey, the artist best known for his "HOPE" portrait of Barack Obama, is now trying to create an iconic image of Myanmar's detained opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi in whom he sees both beauty and sternness.
Fairey's poster of Obama -- which showed the future president tinted in red, white and blue and staring into the sky above the word "HOPE" -- became an emblem for the candidate's supporters during last year's campaign.
In Fairey's representation of Aung San Suu Kyi, the Nobel laureate is depicted beaming with a dove above her heart on top of red rays of light. The phrase "FREEDOM TO LEAD" appears above.
It contrasts with some of the few recent pictures of Aung San Suu Kyi, who has appeared frail after spending most of the past two decades under house arrest imposed by Myanmar's military regime.
"I think that the way people respond to art is when it's both powerful and provocative -- but also beautiful," the Los Angeles-based artist told AFP.
"The fact is that she's a beautiful woman -- stern in her resistance but also very positive," Fairey said. "The positive side, considering everything she's been faced with, was what was important to emphasize."
Aung San Suu Kyi's party swept 1990 elections but the junta in Myanmar refused to let her take power and instead confined her to her house in Yangon.
The 64-year-old is now at Yangon's notorious Insein prison and faces five years imprisonment over a bizarre incident in which an American man swam uninvited to her lakeside house.
Fairey said he was moved by Aung San Suu Kyi in part because she had the choice to leave Myanmar.
He does not hesitate to describe his art as propaganda.
"I'm not afraid to use the term because so much of what we see is propaganda," Fairey said. "Television, advertisements, the way rock stars dress to look cool -- it's all propaganda."
Fairey, 39, is best known as a street artist and graphic designer. His work has ranged from ironic representations of the professional wrestler Andre the Giant to album covers for rockers including the Smashing Pumpkins.
"When it comes to pure aesthetics, I'm not prejudicial politically. I think that some of the Soviet propaganda art or Chinese propaganda art or Cuban propaganda art has been some of the best graphic art that's ever been done," Fairey said.
He acknowledged that propaganda had historical baggage. But he said his intent was not to lionize Obama or Aung San Suu Kyi but to drum up awareness and encourage the public to reach its own conclusions.
"Even if it's not as pervasive as the Obama image, I think it (the Aung San Suu Kyi portrait) could lead to more interest and that's always good," he said.
Fairey was approached to make the poster by prominent human rights activist Jack Healey, who met Aung San Suu Kyi a decade ago and promised to help her.
Healey, head of the Washington-based Human Rights Action Center, said he saw how Fairey's Obama poster fired up young people.
"I thought he could create an iconic image and do internationally for her what he did nationally for the campaign," Healey said.
Causecast, a US online social action network, is using the Internet in a bid to distribute the Aung San Suu Kyi portrait worldwide. The image can be downloaded at http://obeygiant.com.
Brian Sirgutz, the president of Causecast, hoped that the image would appear across social networking sites such as Facebook and spread via Twitter, the microblogging service instrumental to recent protests in Iran.
The portrait will also figure in concerts being planned across North America in the autumn to support Aung San Suu Kyi, Sirgutz said.
"The hope is that this image becomes the symbol of global solidarity for Aung San Suu Kyi to gain her release," he said.
U2 has been notably vocal in seeking the release of Aung San Suu Kyi, releasing a song about her, "Walk On," in 2001.
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