Shepard Fairey New Clear Power 2022 Signed Screen Print 18x24 Ed 350 OBEY
About the work
About This Piece
SHEPARD FAIREY — NEW CLEAR POWER — 2022
Signed & Numbered Screen Print | Edition of 350 | 18 x 24 Inches
Few words appear more consistently throughout Shepard Fairey’s career than POWER.
Who has it.
Who abuses it.
Who controls the information that creates it.
And whether ordinary people can reclaim it.
New Clear Power takes those questions and reduces them to one of Fairey’s most direct compositions: a raised fist surrounded by radiating bolts of energy, rendered in the unmistakable red, black, cream and gold visual vocabulary of OBEY.
The image was created in connection with Fairey’s 2022 New Clear Power exhibition in Munich, Germany—his first solo exhibition in Germany. Fairey described the exhibition as an examination of the different systems and forms of power society must confront when determining its collective future.
This print was released shortly afterward as a signed and numbered edition of only 350.
THE MEANING OF “POWER”
The clenched fist is one of the oldest and most immediately understood symbols in political graphics.
It can represent:
resistance
solidarity
collective action
strength
defiance
the ability of ordinary people to create change
Fairey places that fist directly in the center of the composition.
But what makes New Clear Power more interesting is what surrounds it.
Black lightning-like arrows explode outward in multiple directions. They suggest energy being generated, transmitted or distributed.
The fist therefore doesn't simply represent power.
It appears to produce it.
That distinction matters.
Rather than showing power coming downward from a government, corporation or institution, the image places the source of power in a human hand.
Visually, the message becomes remarkably simple:
POWER CAN COME FROM US.
That is very much in keeping with Fairey’s broader artistic philosophy.
WHAT SHEPARD FAIREY SAID ABOUT THE WORK
Fairey was unusually explicit about what the New Clear Power body of work was meant to address.
He identified several different forms of power:
- abuse of power
- power concentrated under capitalism
- renewable power
- political power
- the power of creativity
- power over information
- the power to control narrative
His point was that “power” is not one single political idea. It operates throughout modern society—in economics, government, media, energy, culture and even in the stories people accept as truth.
That makes this deceptively simple fist image considerably richer once its exhibition context is understood.
“NEW CLEAR POWER”
The title itself is classic Fairey.
NEW CLEAR POWER.
Read aloud, the phrase inevitably echoes “nuclear power.”
But Fairey’s official explanation expands the idea far beyond one specific energy source.
The exhibition addressed renewable energy, fossil-fuel dependence, capitalism, politics, creativity, information and narrative control.
So “New Clear Power” can be read almost as a challenge:
What should the new form of power look like?
Can power be cleaner?
More transparent?
More democratic?
More creative?
Less concentrated?
The title refuses to supply a single answer.
Instead, Fairey gives the viewer a symbol—the fist—and asks them to consider where meaningful power should come from.
THE MUNICH EXHIBITION
The print also has a significant exhibition connection.
New Clear Power opened in Munich on November 5, 2022, at AMUSEUM of Contemporary Art and marked Fairey’s first solo exhibition in Germany.
The exhibition included:
mixed-media paintings
unique works on paper
stencil and collage works
original illustrations
prints on wood and metal
collaged works
Fairey described the entire exhibition as an investigation into how power operates visually, politically and economically.
And he didn't limit the project to the museum.
In advance of the exhibition, Fairey worked with Positive Propaganda on a monumental 370-foot-wide mural along a Munich city highway dealing with the oil industry and the urgency of transitioning toward renewable sources of energy.
That environmental component is important because it places the print within a much larger body of work rather than treating it as an isolated graphic.
FOSSIL FUELS, ENERGY & THE ENVIRONMENT
One of the principal subjects of the New Clear Power exhibition was the power of the fossil-fuel industry and its relationship to climate change and environmental decline.
Fairey specifically identified fossil-fuel dependence as a central concern of the show.
Look again at the artwork with that context.
The lightning bolts become more than decorative elements.
They can suggest:
electricity
energy generation
transmission
renewable power
the struggle over who controls energy
The fist at the center becomes an alternative source of power—not literally electricity, but human agency.
That is one reason the composition works so well.
It allows political power and electrical power to occupy the same visual language.
THE FLOWER SYMBOL
Above the fist sits a small flower-like emblem integrated with what resembles an electrical or transmission structure.
It introduces something organic into an otherwise forceful composition.
That juxtaposition is characteristic Fairey:
technology + nature
power + growth
industry + ecology
strength + beauty
The image doesn't reject power.
It asks what kind of power we choose to build.
THE CLASSIC OBEY VISUAL LANGUAGE
From across a room, New Clear Power is unmistakably Shepard Fairey.
The palette alone establishes that:
deep red
black
cream
gold
Those colors descend directly from the visual language Fairey developed through the OBEY campaign—part propaganda poster, part political graphic, part punk flyer and part Constructivist design.
The enormous fist provides the central icon.
Radiating line work creates movement.
The bold black block across the bottom functions almost like the caption on a propaganda poster.
And the words are intentionally concise:
NEW CLEAR
POWER
No paragraph.
No explanation.
Just an image and a commandingly simple concept.
Fairey himself has explained that he intentionally chooses words with the ability to communicate clearly and concisely. New Clear Power may be one of the clearest examples of that strategy.
A LIMITED OFFICIAL OBEY RELEASE
The official OBEY release documents the print as:
Artist: Shepard Fairey
Title: New Clear Power
Year: 2022
Release Date: December 15, 2022
Medium: Screen Print
Paper: Thick Cream Speckletone Paper
Dimensions: 18 x 24 inches
Edition: 350
Signed: Yes — Shepard Fairey
Numbered: Yes
Original Release Price: $70
Publisher: OBEY Giant
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