Untitled (From the Totem Series)

'The drawings I do have very little to do with classical, post-Renaissance drawings where you try to imitate life or make it appear to be life-like. My drawings don't try to imitate life, they try to create life, try to invent life. That's a much more so-called primitive idea, which is the reason that my drawings look like they could be Aztec or Egyptian or Aboriginal or all these other things, and why they have so much in common with them. It has the same attitude towards drawing: inventing images. You're sort of depicting life, but youre not trying to make it life-like. I dont use colors to try to look life-like, and I dont use lines to try to look life-like. It's also much more Pop, I guess, after growing up in a really carbon- and comic- dominated period. And, also, growing up with Pop art
(C. Flyman, Interview with Keith Haring, September 26, 1980 in G. Celant, Keith Haring, Munich 1992, p. 116).