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

Ben Heine is mainly known for his anti-war cartoons and pro-Palestinian narrative approach to cartooning, as well as for his affiliation with Carlos Latuff, a Brazilian cartoonist who is also pro-Palestine.

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

Art

Cartoons/Illustrations

Heine's works are on exhibition on many international political cartoon websites in the form of galleries. Additionally, he does illustrations for various independent internet news sources.

His illustrations have been used in circulating newspapers as well, as for example, in the Belgian newspaper La Libre Belgique. In August 2006, a cartoon by 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. In May of 2007, Ben realized a poster entitled Beyond The Wall for a series of concerts in Brussels with several musicians suppporting the Palestinian cause.

Many of his drawings include caricatures of famous and less famous people around the world. Some of his caricatures are exhibited on the National Caricaturist Network (NCN).

Paintings

Heine does mainly acrylic paintings, and his style has been described as being “erotico fantastico burlesque”. He has been deeply influenced by German Expressionism, Surrealism and Pop Art.

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 due to alleged anti-Semitism in a piece that appeared on the site. He was also one of the Belgian cartoonists participating in the International Holocaust Cartoon Competition organized by the Iranian newspaper Hamshahri and Irancartoon. Because of this, he has also been accused of anti-Semitism by the French group UPJF (Union des Patrons et des Professionnels Juifs de France), although his name appears on an open letter with other cartoonists to deny such allegations. Ben Heine strongly insists that the cartoons in question aimed to support the oppressed ones and criticized the Zionist actions in Palestine.

References

External links

[[link] Official Site]

[[link] Ben Heine] on DeviantART

[[link] Letter to the Editor and Editors' responses on MWCNews site]