Chris Madden Cartoons

A searchable archive for licensing

Carl Andre obituary cartoon

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pollution cartoon
Karl Andre obituary cartoon - minimalism

Carl Andre obituary cartoon.

The minimalist artist Carl Andre, who died on 24th January 2024, became famous for his work composed of arrangements of bricks and similar construction materials.

Andre became famous in Britain when the Tate Gallery purchased one of his minimalist grids of bricks titled Equivalent VIII. The bricks became known popularly as The Tate Bricks.
Drawn: 25th January 2024
Cartoon reference number: a960

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Pollution cartoon

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pollution cartoon
Ethical investment illustration

Pollution cartoon.

The cartoon shows the Global North and the Global South on a pair of scales, with the Global North producing most of the pollution. This pollution is drifting across and if affecting the Global South while the Global North remains relatively unaffected by its own pollution.

A cartoon that comments on over-consumption at Christmas.
Drawn: November 2023
Cartoon reference number: a959

Banksy cartoon

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Banksy cartoon
Banksy cartoon

Banksy cartoon.

A cartoon featuring a queue for a Banksy exhibition, one of whom is a girl who features in several of Banksy’s stencil artworks (In the cartoon the girl is also a stencil on the wall).

The cartoon was created at the time of the Banksy exhibition in the Gallery of Modern Art (GoMA) in Glasgow, 2023.
Drawn: July 2023
First published: The Critic magazine. July 2023
Cartoon reference number: a958b

Banksy cartoon

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Banksy cartoon
Banksy cartoon

Banksy cartoon.

A cartoon showing a queue for a Banksy exhibition. One of the people in the queue is a girl who features in several of Banksy’s stencil works (In the cartoon she is actually a stencil herself, on the wall in the cartoon).

The cartoon was drawn at the time of the Banksy exhibition in Glasgow’s Gallery of Modern Art (GoMA), summer 2023.
Drawn: July 2023
First published (colour version): The Critic magazine. July 2023
Cartoon reference number: a958

A cartoon about throw away fast fashion

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Fast fashion or throw away fashion illustration
Fast fashion or throw away fashion illustration

An environmental illustration or cartoon about fast fashion.

The illustration shows a person wearing “slow fashion” clothes instead of “fast fashion” clothes.

Throw away fashion or fast fashion is a form of fashion where clothes are made very cheaply so that they are cheap to buy and easy to throw away after very little use – maybe even just one night out.
Drawn: July 2022
Cartoon reference number: a951

Dog and ball

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Dog and earth globe as ball  - illustration

An environmental illustration or cartoon showing a dog chasing a ball.

The ball is the earth as a globe.

The intension of the illustration is to draw a link between pet ownership and the environment. It was originally drawn for a booklet about how to look after your pet in an environmentally responsible way.
Drawn: July 2022
Cartoon reference number: a950

Banksy exhibition

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Banksy exhibition Just Stop Oil protest - cartoon

Banksy exhibition disrupted by Just Stop Oil protester – cartoon.

The cartoon shows a Just Stop Oil protester disrupting the Banksy exhibition in the Gallery of Modern Art (GoMA), Glasgow.

The Banksy exhibition is titled Cut and Run. 18 June – 28 Aug 2023.
Drawn: July 2023
Cartoon reference number: a949

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The commercialization of Gay Pride

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monetizing gay pride sponsorship - cartoon

Monetizing gay pride through sponsorship.

Over the years Gay Pride has moved from being a rights based protest movement to a commercial opportunity.

Gay Pride Month is now an extended corporate sponsorship event, complete with rainbow flag adorned merchandising.
Drawn: June 2019
Cartoon reference number: a948

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Cartoon about the threat of Artificial Intelligence (AI)

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AI cartoon artificial intelligence doomer
artificial intelligence AI cartoon

AI cartoon (Artificial intelligence).

A cartoon about AI, or artificial intelligence. The cartoon shows concern for the fact that it may be impossible to programme safeguards into AI systems, as the AI system will become intelligent enough to find a loophole to overcome the programmed safeguards.
Concern about AI has existed ever since the conncept of AI was thought of – now that AI is becoming a practical possibility the concern is becoming more widely held. People who believe that AI is an existential threat to humanity are sometimes called doomers.

Drawn: 3rd April 2023
Cartoon reference number: a947

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The threat of Artificial Intelligence (AI): cartoon

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AI artificial intelligence cartoon
AI artificial intelligence cartoon

Artificial intelligence cartoon.

A cartoon about the possible dangers of AI, or artificial intelligence. The cartoon is based on the computer cliché that to fix a computer you need to turn it off and turn it on again. The cartoon coveys the message that AI may become so clever that it can thwart our attempts to control it. People who believe that AI is an existential threat to humanity are sometimes called doomers.

Drawn: 3rd April 2023
First published: Private Eye, issue 1596, April 2023
Cartoon reference number: a946

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Tate Modern and the luxury apartment windows row.

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Tate Modern and the luxury apartment windows - cartoon

Tate Modern and the NEO Bankside apartment windows.

Tate Modern in London has been fighting a planning battle with NEO Bankside, a block of nearby luxury flats, concerning the fact that an observation gallery at Tate Modern overlooks the flats.

The owners of the NEO Bankside apartments claim that the view from the observation gallery affects their privacy – even though the flats were designed with huge ceiling to floor windows.
Drawn: 7th February 2023
First published: Private Eye, February 2023
Cartoon reference number: a943

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Roald Dahl words changed

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Roald Dahl words altered cartoon

A cartoon about the changing of words in Roald Dahl books.

The cartoon illustrates the bowderising or censorship of the text of Roald Dahl children’s books. The changes include the removal of words such as ‘ugly’ and ‘fat’.
The changes are put down to the use of sensitivity readers who are employed to alter text to remove language that is judged to be inappropriate or problematic.

The action is viewed as being part of the woke phenomenon.
Drawn: February 2023
Cartoon reference number: a944

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Transgender toilets cartoon – XX chromosomes and XY chromosomes

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Transgender cartoon

A cartoon about the use of women’s toilets by transgender women.

The cartoon illustrates the issue that if transgender women are allowed to use women-only spaces, such as women’s toilets, refuges etc, there will be non spaces that are exclusively for biological women. Biological women are people who have two X chromosomes, while biological men have an X and a Y chromosome.

Drawn: 17th January 2023
Cartoon reference number: a942

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Nicola Sturgeon resigns

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Nicola Sturgeon resigns - cartoon

Nicola Sturgeon resigns as leader of the SNP”.

The cartoon shows that this may be the death of the possibility of Scottish independence.

There is no clear candidate to replace Sturgeon who would be capable of leading the Scottish National Party towards its aim of achieving independence from the UK.
Drawn: 15th February 2023
Cartoon reference number: a941

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“On the right side of history” cartoon

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Right side of history - Taliban cartoon

A cartoon about the expression “On the right side of history”.

The cartoon hopefully points out the nonsense of the expression along with its preposterous self-regard by applying it to the Taliban, who I’m sure think that they are right.

In fact, beware those who have the over-confidecnceof thinking that they are “on the right side of history”!
Drawn: 27th December 2022
Cartoon reference number: a940

Art gallery repatriation cartoon

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Museum repatriation cartoon

A cartoon about repatriation and reparation by art galleries and museums.

A cartoon concerning the return of works and items from the collections of museums and art galleries that are now judged by some to have been obtained by inappropriate means.

The cartoon is about the fact that the definition of ‘inappropriate means’ can be widened until it encompasses almost all transactions.
Currently it is chiefly applied to works that fall into the decolonisation category.
Drawn: 24th December 2022
Cartoon reference number: a939

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Abuse and misconduct by police officers – cartoon

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abuse by police cartoon

A cartoon about abuse and misconduct perpetrated by police officers.

There have been several high profile cases of police misconduct by police officers in the last few years. The most recent is the case of David Carrick, who worked for the Metropolitan Police in London, who has been charged with 49 charges of sexual abuse, including rape.
Abusive police officers can use their position of authority to manipulate victims and to evade suspicion.

The cartoon is specifically about the group culture that can exist between police officers which allows their behaviour to go unscrutinised or even endorsed by a form of barrack-room mentality.
Drawn: January 2023
Cartoon reference number: a938

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Decolonisation and repatriation of museum collections

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museum repatriation cartoon

A cartoon about the move to repatriate items from museum collections.

Cartoon about the growing demands for museums to reassess their collections in the light of issues around decolonisation, racism and other social justice tenets.
The cartoon specifically highlights the concept of guilt as directed towards museums and other cultural institutions in the West due to the perceived unique nature of the West’s history of imperialism and colonisation.
Here in the Uk the phenomenon can be observed inn the debates concerning the Elgin Marbles and Benin Bronzes in the British Museum and in the overall philosophy of the curators of the Pitt Rivers Museum in Oxford.

Drawn: 4th December 2022
Cartoon reference number: a936

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Unconscious prejudice cartoon

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Unconscious racism, sexism, transphobia, homophobia cartoon

A cartoon about unconscious racism, sexism, homophobia or transphobia.

The cartoon shows a social gathering at which a person is wearing a T-shirt with the message:
“I’m one the lookout for unconscious racism, sexism, transphobia, homophobia”.
Everyone at the gathering is giving a wide berth to the T-shirt wearer.
As a result the T-shirt wearer is seeing the other people as racist, sexist, homophobic and transphobic.

One of the points of the cartoon is that if you look for something you may see it even of it isn’t there, especially if you are observing through the filter of ideology.
Another point of the cartoon is the divisive nature of excessive ideological zeal – in this case the way that the people at the gathering shy away from interacting with the T-shirt wearer for fear of being over-scrutinised.
Drawn: 8th January 2023
Cartoon reference number: a935

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Empowered by ideology – cartoon

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Empowered by ideology cartoon

A cartoon showing political activists or protesters who feel empowered and motivated by their ideology.

The cartoon is a comment on the way that people who hold ideological beliefs feel a sense of empowerment, motivation and identity (If you’ve ever been on a protest march you’ll know the feeling).

This can have the downside of blinding them to alternative ways of seeing the world.
Drawn: 28th December 2022
Cartoon reference number: a933

Return the Elgin Marbles – cartoon

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Return the Elgin Marbles (Parthenon Sculptures) cartoon

A cartoon about the campaign to return the Elgin Marbles, or Parthenon Sculptures, to Greece.

It’s argued that the Elgin Marbles or Parthenon Sculptures should be returned to Greece because of the much debated manner in which they were removed from Greece by Lord Elgin.

This cartoon points out that the Parthenon sculptures were created in the first place by a civilisation that was heavily reliant on slaves.
In the current political climate there have been many statues linked to slavery that have been pulled down.
The comment about returning the sculptures to the bottom of the Aegean is a reference to the throwing of a statue of Sir Edward Colton in to the sea in Bristol here in the UK
Drawn: 8th January 2023
Cartoon reference number: a934

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Art gallery self-censorship

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Art gallery self-censorship cartoon

A cartoon showing an art gallery removing ‘inappropriate’ art from its displays.

The cartoon comments on the way that in recent years art galleries have started to display works on an ever decreasing number of subjects and by an increasingly narrow range of types of artist (although in the past there were definitely too many works created by other types of artist).

The currently preferred themes for works are those associated with the social justice, or woke, movement – predominantly race, slavery, gender and sexuality.
The cartoon depicts the way in which artworks that are interpreted as going against the ethos of the social justice movement are being removed from galleries.
Drawn: 1st October 2020
Cartoon reference number: a932