A subversive Fairey tale

Iconic and ironic, Shepard Fairey's posters and murals sit as easily on the walls of the hangar-like StolenSpace temporary gallery as they do on the streets for which they were designed.

LA-based Fairey is provocateur and parodist, made famous by his 1989 sticker campaign, Obey Giant, which aimed to usurp advertising's control of public space with an image of wrestler Andre the Giant.

Fairey, a forerunner to Banksy, is often categorised as a graffiti artist. If he has a tag, it's the ubiquitous 'obey' which is printed in the corner of pieces like a signature.

His work drops the placard slogans of graffiti and instead allows the printed word of headlines to appear through layers of wallpaper and stencil, like a comic book made up of eavesdropped dialogue.

So a couple gaze at a sunset through the pollution of a power station (pictured), accompanied by obscured headlines announcing the 'worst storm of century'. The newspaper cuttings gradually emerge like distinct words breaking free from a crowd. Despite the simplicity of his messages, Fairey avoids the triteness of over-earnest political artists, through both the slow release of the collage and a sophisticated aesthetic. He uses the limited palette - mostly red - and graphic style of Russian constructivism and Chinese revolutionary art, creating subversive images through the vocabulary of propaganda.

Until Nov 25, StolenSpace, Old Truman Brewery, 87-89 Brick Lane E1, daily 11am to 7pm, free. Tel: 020 7247 2684. www.stolenspace.com Tube: Liverpool Street

Shepard Fairey: Nineteeneightyfouria
StolenSpace Gallery, Dray Walk, The Old Truman Brewery
Brick Lane, E1 6QL