Almost a year ago I put a clipping outside my office door, a story from the Globe and Mail profiling Poto Leifi, a commercial artist who enlisted in the US Army in 2005 and put his talents to work commemorating his fallen comrades. I took the clipping down today, and suddenly realized that I had never blogged it.
A fan of vintage posters and artwork, Leifi composes tributes to fallen US soldiers in the style of old World War Two posters. Leifi noticed that when he started experimenting with putting fallen soldiers’ faces into his work, “the posters came to life in a very profound way”. I would certainly agree with that.
The Globe and Mail article can be found here. Sadly, there are only a few of Leifi’s commemorative pieces on the web to my knowledge.
Very fitting and well done….
Mike, they really are excellent. Like the before-during-after photos from Afghanistan you blogged a cuople of weeks ago, they have a haunting quality. But there's something else, something very positive, warm and human about them. I think they're very good indeed. Thanks for posting them.
Very moving
Mike, I don't know if you found the website for Poto's site. If not, it's at http://www.freedomsonme.com, with a lot more posters at http://www.freedomsonme.com/home.html.
There's a lot of very fine posters on there, including one of Corporal Nathan Hornburg of The King's Own Calgary Regiment, Calgary, Alberta, Canada.