untitled (framed "Mt. Fuji") , Jimmy Tsutomu Mirikitani

Like Mirikitani, Keith Haring transformed discarded materials into potent vehicles of expression. Both artists rooted their practices in public, accessible spaces—Haring in the subways and streets of New York, Mirikitani on the sidewalks of lower Manhattan. In this Coca-Cola piece, Haring’s reuse of commercial packaging parallels Mirikitani’s inventive use of found materials such as paper, Styrofoam, and discarded shower curtains. In one striking example, Mirikitani glued a photocopied image of Mt. Fuji to the back of a DHL shipping envelope, embellishing it with colored pencil. In another, he drew a cat inside an abandoned wooden drawer, adorning it with flakes of gold paper. Both artists reclaimed society’s castoffs, transforming urban debris into enduring symbols of creative defiance.