Ben Heine

File:Iran cartoon, occupation (Ben Heine).jpg

Stop the war! Artwork by Ben Heine

File:Damaged Um al-Nasser Mosque in the centre of Beit Hanoun.jpg

Tragedy in Beit Hanoun Artwork by Ben Heine

Condoleezza Rice Artwork by Ben Heine

Ben Heine is a Belgian political cartoonist, caricaturist and painter born in June 12, 1983, in Abidjan, Ivory coast. He studied art and journalism and currently produces political art relating to day to day international political issues.

Heine is mainly known for his anti-war cartoons, his affiliation with Carlos Latuff and for his share in their pro-Palestinian narrative approach to cartooning.

In November 2006, he issued a pro-Palestinian poster to illustrate his political affiliation in the Israeli-Arab conflict, by calling for "solidarity in anti-zionism".

Art

Cartoons/Illustrations

Ben Heine is a member of the Don Quichotte Worldteam and often publishes works there. He also draws for the news sites MWC News, Rebelion and Tlaxcala.

His cartoons have been featured on some popular cartoon-Websites of the Middle and Far East World like Irancartoon, Syriacartoon, Arabcartoon, Persiancartoon, the Turkish site Karikaturevi, Tabrizcartoon, the website of the Azerbaijan Cartoon Association as well as on the Chinese Okcomic. His political images are also exhibited on other Websites dedicated to cartoons such as Cartoonworld (United Kingdom) and Cartoonru (Russia).

He collaborates with the Belgian newspaper La Libre Belgique [1] [2]. He collaborates with the alternative information Website Rebelion and with Tlaxcala, the Translators’ Network for Linguistic Diversity.

In August 2006, a famous cartoon of Ben Heine was used for an anti-war poster presenting the Don Quichotte exhibition "Stop the War", which was held in Turkey and in Germany during the 2006 Lebanon war. His cartoons about the war in Lebanon were published in several Middle East newspapers such as the Syrian Al Baath

Caricatures

Ben Heine draws the caricatures of famous and less famous people around the world. Some of his caricatures are exhibited on Dessin d'humour and the National Caricaturist Network (NCN). He recently participated to the Second International Kruger Worshop.

Paintings

Heine's acrylic paintings self describes his paintings as “erotico fantastico burlesque”. He has been deeply influenced by the German Expressionism, Surrealism and Pop Art and draws what he sees with the eyes of imagination.

He has exhibited his paintings in Belgium and England.

Controversies

In April 2007, a cartoon by Ben Heine was censored by the North American site Daily Kos. Since then, several defences to Heine's work have been written, the first one by is "Blog associate", DesertPeace. Others by Tlaxcala's and MWC News' editors (see links below). Ben Heine has been accused of anti-Semitism by the French group UPJF (Union des Patrons et des Professionnels Juifs de France) although he wrote an open letter with other cartoonists to deny such allegations. Ben Heine strongly insisted that the concerned cartoons aimed to support the oppressed ones and criticized the Zionist actions in Palestine. Nevertheless he was one of the Belgian cartoonists participating in the cartoon contest organized by Hamshari and Irancartoon.

Sources

Tlaxcala Fully Supports Ben Heine (By Tlaxcala's collective)
What was eating Dailykos? (By Gideon Polya and Shahram Vahdany)
Cartoonist Ben Heine joins Rebelion (By Manuel Talens)
Don Quichotte Magazine and Drawing the world together … with a smile (by Mario Sughi)
Ben Heine profile (In French and English)
Celebrating a Blogosphere star : Ben Heine (By Peter Amsel)
Who is the mind behind my images? (By Steve Amsel)

External links

Art