David Foldvari - Big Active

David Foldvari was born in Budapest, Hungary, but has lived in the UK for the last 20 years. His work often tackles issues of alienation, identity and belonging, formed by a preoccupation with his eastern European roots, combined with his experience of growing up in the UK. David's work is bold, darkly humorous and often political in tone; his draftsmanship has led to a prolific output both personally and commercially. Some of his previous clients include the New York Times, Greenpeace, Random House, Penguin Books, Dazed & Confused and Island Records.

Foldvari has used Photoshop and draughtmanship with an ink pen to create this. The work is dark but still fun; the man with a rifle framed by bright colours and splashes. I think Foldvari is trying to say that war doesn't always need to be serious and that even the opposite side are human beings. It is nicely balanced with the block black man on the right and then the colours ballooning out of him across the page. The whole piece is focused on the gun. It pokes out unsurrounded by anything, black on a cream page, a focus point. For most of us guns, especially heavy-duty AKs like this man has, are accompanied by a host of negative connotations. However, Foldvari does nothing to take the focus away from the gun, as he has with the negative headscarf and Arabic features. These things also have negative conditioning in the mind of the public.