The Art of Activism

Spotlighting the efforts of artists who are engaged in the struggle for social justice and are helping build the movement through their work.

Art of Activism: Gabi Hawkins

An interview with Gabi Hawkins on resistance movements and inspiration.

Q&A

A Q&A with Fearless Collective ambassador, Vicky Shahjehan on solidarity, and the role that art plays in activism.

Q&A

An illustration of people sitting in chairs fixing a quilt that says Democracy is Alive

Artist Zoe Newton is also PRA’s Communications Coordinator. Zoe is a visual storyteller and creative problem solver. Their work centers around community and cultural competency. In 2021, Zoe graduated from the Sam Fox School of Art and Design at…

Q&A

Protesters holding a black lives matter flag and walking

Anthony Crider is a professor of Astrophysics at Elon University in North Carolina. He is also a photographer with a keen eye for capturing just the right moment. Photographing both social justice protests and far-right mobilizations, Crider has…

Article

Danbee (Deb) Kim is a Chicago-based artist who supports social justice movements and organizations through visual storytelling and design. Originally on the path to become a social worker, Kim now focuses full-time on centering art in movement…

Article

Rae Senarighi is a painter, designer, and muralist based in Portland, Oregon. The front cover of the Summer 2018 issue of The Public Eye features a piece from “The Love Series,” which he conceptualized after a cancer diagnosis. Senarighi decided…

Article

Cover art for PE Winter 2018, showing the words "Protest makes America great," and several important moments of protest of American history.

As a Filipino-American printmaker, illustrator, comic artist, and educator, Karl Orozco’s work often grapples with the legacy of colonialism, seeking to “challenge assumed notions of race, family, migration and power.”

Article

A student looks at the remaining boots of a toppled statue.

Our fall cover artist, Jennifer Luxton, describes herself as a “journalist by training, designer by profession, illustrator by passion, and amateur taxidermist by moonlight.”

Article

The cover artist for the summer issue of The Public Eye, Ashley Lukashevsky, was born and raised in Honolulu, Hawaii, where she was involved with activism from a young age. Her life took a detour, however, when she attended University of Southern…

Article

This spring’s Public Eye cover artist, Erik Ruin, is a Philadelphia-based printmaker, shadow puppeteer, and paper-cut artist whose work has been called “spell-binding” by The New York Times. He describes his art as oscillating “between the poles of…

Article

The Artists of The Public Eye

Since a re-design in 2013, The Public Eye has featured the work of activist artists both on the covers and inside. Here’s a look back at what some of our featured artists had to say about the “Art of Activism”:

Article

Nansi Guevara, a visual artist and activist based in South Texas, has been creating art for as long as she can remember. “The circumstances in my household, a crafty and costurera mother and a father that left construction materials all over the…

Article

“A History of the War on Drugs”

The Public Eye Artist in the News

On September 15, hip-hop artist Jay Z and author and illustrator Molly Crabapple collaborated (along with dream hampton, Jim Batt, and Kim Boekbinder) on a short, animated video, “A History of the War on Drugs, from Prohibition to Gold Rush,” for…

Article

Putin stands in front of the Eastern Orthodox cross and the geographical outline of Russia.

Joshua McPhee, our Winter 2016 cover artist, didn’t go to a traditional art school to learn his craft, but rather what he calls “the punk rock school of art,” where he became part of a politicized sub-culture and learned to work in a wide variety of…

Article

Influential figures pour resources into the Church, with representation of tax cuts for the rich and budget cuts for Medicare.

Amelia Spinney, a visual artist and arts educator in the greater Boston area, created the cover image for the Fall 2015 issue of The Public Eye. Spinney describes being politicized as an artist and a person in two particular moments. When they were…

Article

The Art of Activism: Asad Badat

Asad Badat, the artist behind the cover of the Summer 2015 issue, says he’s always seen himself as “a passionate observer who has romantic eyes for beauty.” Recently, though, he’s departed from this observatory position, opting instead to use his…

Article

The Art of Activism: Helen Zughaib

Helen Zughaib came to her longtime home in Washington, D.C., by way of many other nations. Born in Beirut, Lebanon, she also lived in Iraq, Kuwait, Greece and France, before coming to the United States to earn her BFA at Syracuse University in 1981…

Article

From the cover of PE Winter 2015: the words "A Global Scam: Selling the 'Natural Family'"

When Meredith Stern (whose artwork is also featured on the front cover) chooses where to live, she embraces the “act locally, think globally” ethos. That’s why, once she put down roots in Providence, Rhode Island, the printmaker and collage artist…

Article

The Art of Activism: David Bacon

For more than 30 years, David Bacon has been writing about and photographing people who are displaced by poverty in Mexico and choose to cross into the United States in search of a better life.

Article

The Art of Activism: Rommy Torrico

This issue’s cover artist, Rommy Torrico, is the graphics and new media director for the Collier County Neighborhood Stories Project (CCNSP), based in southwest Florida.

Article

Art of Activism: Gabi Hawkins

Art of Activism: Vicky Shahjehan

The Art of Activism: Zoe Newton

2020: A Year in Pictures

The Art of Activism: Danbee Kim

The Art of Activism: Rae Senarighi

The Art of Activism: Karl Orozco

The Art of Activism: Jennifer Luxton

The Art of Activism: Ashley Lukashevsky

The Art of Activism: Erik Ruin

The Artists of The Public Eye

The Art of Activism: Nansi Guevara

“A History of the War on Drugs”

The Art of Activism: Joshua McPhee

The Art of Activism: Amelia Spinney

The Art of Activism: Asad Badat

The Art of Activism: Helen Zughaib

The Art of Activism: Meredith Stern

The Art of Activism: David Bacon

The Art of Activism: Rommy Torrico

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The Art of Activism

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