Shepard Fairey
“Push” (Revolutionary Love Series)
Artist’s Proof • 2021

Screen Print on Thick Cream Speckletone Paper • 12″ × 12″
Hand-Signed in Pencil • Artist’s Proof (AP)
Shepard Fairey × Amplifier × The Revolutionary Love Project

What You Are Getting

An Artist’s Proof (AP) of Shepard Fairey’s “Push” — one of ten designs in the Revolutionary Love series, created in collaboration with Amplifier and The Revolutionary Love Project founded by civil rights leader Valarie Kaur. This 12″ × 12″ screen print on thick cream Speckletone paper features two open hands cupping upward, cradling a lotus flower with a globe at its center, flanked by red radiating lines and crowned by a light blue halo, with the word “PUSH” inscribed in a banner at the base. Hand-signed in pencil by Shepard Fairey in the lower right margin, with “AP” notation in pencil in the lower left.

The numbered edition of this series was limited to 250 sets, released December 21, 2021 via the Obey Giant store. Artist’s Proofs exist outside that numbered run and are typically produced in far smaller quantities — making this AP designation significantly rarer than numbered impressions from the standard edition.

Print Details

About the Work

“Push” is one of the most figurative and emotionally direct prints in the Revolutionary Love series. Where most of the ten designs center on objects and symbols, this composition places the human body at the heart of the image: two open hands, cupped upward, cradling and lifting a stylized lotus flower whose center holds a globe rendered in dark blue-green. The hands don’t grip or clutch — they offer. It’s a gesture of nurturing, of presentation, of careful upward pressure.

Above the hands, red radiating lines burst outward from the flower’s stem like a pulse of energy — the only use of red in the central composition, a color Fairey reserves for urgency and activation. A light blue halo arcs over the entire tableau, evoking religious iconography — the nimbus of sainthood, the aureole of sacred figures in Orthodox and Buddhist art. The background is dominated by bold diagonal light blue rays cutting through the dark field, lending the image a sense of upward momentum and expansion.

In Valarie Kaur’s Revolutionary Love framework, “push” is the labor metaphor at the heart of her philosophy. Kaur’s most famous framing asks: What if the darkness of our times is not the darkness of the tomb, but the darkness of the womb? To push is to participate in the painful, exhausting, necessary work of bringing something new into the world. Fairey’s image captures that idea with striking precision: the hands push the flower — and the world it contains — upward and outward, toward the light. The globe inside the lotus says the stakes are planetary. The halo says the work is sacred. The red burst says it’s happening now.

The Revolutionary Love Series

The Revolutionary Love series was a 2021 collaboration between Shepard Fairey, Amplifier (a Seattle-based nonprofit that uses art as a tool for social change), and The Revolutionary Love Project founded by Valarie Kaur — a Sikh-American civil rights leader, filmmaker, and lawyer whose TED Talk on revolutionary love has been viewed millions of times.

The series comprises ten 12″ × 12″ screen prints, each featuring a different imperative word rendered in Fairey’s signature mandala-and-icon visual language. Each design draws from Fairey’s most recognized motifs — lotus flowers, stars, laurel wreaths, radiating lines, ornamental borders, ocean imagery — recombined into compositions that function as both standalone artworks and visual calls to action.

The complete set of ten prints was released on December 21, 2021 at 10 AM PDT via store.obeygiant.com in a foil-embossed box with certificate of authentication, edition of 250 sets, at $300. All ten prints were individually signed and numbered by Fairey in pencil, with matching edition numbers across each set.

Why This AP Matters

This print is designated AP (Artist’s Proof) — a designation reserved for impressions pulled outside the numbered edition, typically for the artist’s personal use, gallery placement, or sale through private channels. In fine art printmaking, APs are produced in much smaller quantities than the numbered run (industry standard is typically 10% of the edition or fewer). For a series with a numbered edition of 250, Artist’s Proofs are substantially rarer than standard numbered impressions.

AP impressions are identical in quality and printing to the numbered edition — they come from the same screens, the same ink runs, the same paper stock. The difference is scarcity and provenance. In the secondary market, APs consistently command a premium over their numbered counterparts because of their limited availability and their closer association with the artist’s personal archive.

About the Artist

Shepard Fairey (b. 1970, Charleston, South Carolina) is one of the most influential artists of his generation. He emerged from the skateboarding and punk scenes of the late 1980s at the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD), where he created the “Andre the Giant Has a Posse” sticker campaign that evolved into the globally recognized OBEY GIANT phenomenon. His 2008 HOPE portrait of Barack Obama became one of the most iconic political images in American history and is held in the permanent collection of the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery.

Fairey’s work synthesizes influences from Russian Constructivism, propaganda art, skateboard graphics, and punk rock into a visual language that is instantly recognizable and deeply engaged with social and political issues. He has painted over 140 public murals worldwide, founded Studio Number One and OBEY Clothing, and maintains one of the most active print practices in contemporary art. His work is held in the collections of the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), the Victoria and Albert Museum, the Smithsonian, the Institute of Contemporary Art Boston, and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, among others.

What Is Included

• Shepard Fairey “Push” screen print — Artist’s Proof (AP), 12″ × 12″ on thick cream Speckletone paper
• Hand-signed in pencil by Shepard Fairey with AP notation
• Ships unframed, flat, with archival protection

Shipping

Ships flat with rigid backing and archival-quality protective materials. Tracking included, fully insured. International buyers welcome — customs fees may apply upon delivery.

Questions? Message us anytime — happy to provide additional photos or details.