Untitled

This black-and-white drawing consists of broad, linear elements that recall Asian calligraphic characters and pre-Columbian hieroglyphs. The outlines represent two human figures wading in a pool of water and grasping snakes. Keith Haring filled the empty white spaces with black squiggles, embedding the recognizable forms within a field of pattern and movement. Representative of his early work, this drawing exemplifies the artist's developing language of simplified, archetypal imagery that he derived from ancient and non-European cultures, mass media, and popular culture.