Photo By Gail

Artist, writer, and activist David Wonjarowicz (1954 – 1992) first gained public attention in the early 1980s on the streets of downtown New York through his handmade posters and graffiti murals. Fire (1987) is one of four paintings in a series titled The Four Elements, in which the artist aimed to complicate narratives from American culture by suffusing them with his own lived experiences.

The work contains depictions of natural, mythic, and symbolic sources of heat and energy, such as a volcano, Satan, and a heart. This imagery is combined with iconography that reoccurs throughout Wojnarowicz’s work, including snakes, dung beetles, maps, and advertisements.

Photographed in the Museum of Modern Art in New York City