Frank Shepard Fairey is an American contemporary artist, activist and founder of OBEY Clothing who emerged from the skateboarding scene. By 1984 he was designing and selling hand-decorated boards and T-shirts. He graduated from the Idyllwild Arts Academy in Palm Springs, California, and earned a B.F.A. from the Rhode Island School of Design. While at the latter institute, he experimented with street-art media, launching his first sticker campaign in 1989 with a crude portrait of André René Roussimoff, captioned Andre the Giant Has a Posse. He gained national attention and sold more than one million copies of another sticker with a refined version of the portrait and the single word Obey. A documentary short, André the Giant Has a Posse (1997; directed by Helen Stickler), and Fairey’s adroit use of the Internet further raised awareness of his instantly recognizable style—appropriated imagery reduced to strong graphic renderings in black, white, and red.