Pop Art With Opinions: Why Heath Kane's Prints Belong on Your Wall
An edition exclusive to Atom Gallery: a distinctive limited edition screenprint by renowned artist Heath Kane, part of his acclaimed Rich Enough To Be Batman series, featuring vibrant colours and exquisite diamond dust detailing. Signed and numbered by the artist.
Artist Heath Kane
Size 50 X 70 cm
Medium screenprint
Edition Size 20
The Queen, a Batman mask, and a question about wealth that gets harder to answer every year.
There's an image that stops people. The Queen — composed, regal, unmistakable — wearing a Batman mask. It's absurd. It's funny. And then, about three seconds in, it's a bit uncomfortable. That's Heath Kane doing exactly what good pop art is supposed to do: making you laugh before it makes you think.
Kane's work has been stacking up at Atom for a while now, and if you've been sleeping on it, this is your nudge to have a proper look. Because in a moment when everyone's asking where the money went and who's actually doing anything about it, a print about superheroes and billionaires hits a little different.
From the Boardroom to the Print Studio
Heath Kane spent the best part of 25 years in design and branding before he called time on it and started making art. He'd worked at the sharp end of commercial creativity — media agencies, creative directorships, luxury brands. The work was lucrative. It was also starting to feel hollow.
It wasn't until 2020 that Kane went full-time as an artist, setting up his studio and gallery in Saffron Walden, Essex. The pivot wasn't a retreat from commercial thinking — it was more like a raid on it. He brought his knowledge of how brands speak, how images land, and how design shapes perception, and turned all of that energy toward something more honest.
The result is work that knows exactly how to get your attention — and then uses that attention to say something you might not have expected.
The Queen, Batman, and the Sunday Times Rich List
The piece that started everything — "Rich Enough to be Batman" — came out of a fairly simple moment of annoyance. Kane was reading the Sunday Times Rich List and found himself wondering what, exactly, the point was. Were we supposed to celebrate these people? Marvel at the gap? Just quietly accept it?
The concept clicked: Batman isn't superhuman. His superpower is money. He's a billionaire who chose to use his wealth to protect people. So in a world where wealth is concentrating into fewer and fewer hands, the question becomes: how rich do you need to be before you become Batman? And if you got there — would you?
The image is the Queen — a figure simultaneously synonymous with wealth, power and duty — wearing the mask. It's arch, it's irreverent, and it lands differently depending on what you bring to it. Some people find it funny. Some find it bleak. Most find it both at the same time.
The series has produced dozens of editions and colourways over the years, and Atom currently stocks several of the Lizzie Flag variants — pieces that nod, with a slight sideways look, at the particular flavour of British wealth and what we make of it.
The Wider World: What Else Heath Kane Gets Up To
The Batman series is the headline, but Kane's practice doesn't stop there. At Atom you'll also find his "POV" works — "POV Mickey Riot" being a particular standout, putting you inside a riot cop's visor to look back at the happiest mouse in the world. Mickey Mouse as crowd-control target. Make of that what you will.
Screenprint by Heath Kane, part of the artist’s POV series. Numbered and signed.
Edition Size: 20
Medium: screenprint
Year: 2023
Artist Heath Kane
Medium screenprint
Edition Size 20
Then there's "Buy More Crap" — a screenprinted dollar bill that does exactly what it says on the tin. It's sharp, it's minimal, and at £65 it's one of the more accessible entry points into collecting work that actually has something to say.
A bold artwork by Heath Kane: a neon pink screenprint on a genuine US dollar bill, featuring vivid pink text declaring "BUY MORE CRAP" and a central portrait altered with a pink mask resembling devil horns. Signed and numbered by the artist.
Kane has also worked with Penguin Books on covers for George Orwell's books, which feels like an appropriate collaboration. Nobody would have been surprised.
Why It Works as a Print
One of the things that makes Kane's work function so well in print form is that it was built to be looked at. He comes from design — he understands resolution, composition, colour relationships. These aren't paintings that have been translated into prints. They're works where the print is the object.
The screenprinting process adds a physical quality to it too: the texture of the ink on paper, the slight variation between editions, the fact that you're holding something made by hand. The Lizzie Flag editions use specific colourways that feel considered rather than arbitrary. The green version reads very differently to the grey. The diamond dust variants add a kind of garish glitter that feels pointed.
This is work that earns its place on a wall — not because it matches your sofa, but because it keeps giving you something to think about.
“Fact Check” a handfinished screenprint by Heath Kane for the "Time of the Signs" exhibition at Atom Gallery.
Artist Heath Kane
Size 70 X 70 cm
Medium screenprint