Okay so im a grade 12 student and im searching for some artists that have used political views and ideals in thier art. I was wondering if anyone knew any awesome ones for me to check out?

Leon Golub

I've just been doing some work on Goya - you might like to have a look at his work. He lived through the political upheaval of Napoleon's invasion of Spain and the wars. His painting 'May 3rd 1808' is a horrifying picture of a French firing squad executing Spaniards and there is also his set of etchings 'the Disasters of War' showing the terrible atrocities of the time. Picasso's painting 'Guernica'(also a political work) during the Spanish Civil War of the 1930s is influenced by Goya.
Hope this is not too late to be of help Judy

Jude is right, I don't think Goya has ever been bettered. He travelled Spain during the Napoleonic Occupation and drew what he saw. Forty years ago, I travelled to London to see the collected works of Goya shown at the Royal Academy. The 'horrors of war' drawings are ink, some quite small. Some have tiny ink spatters because he was working so fast. The executions painting is almost luminous.
I recommend you check out 19th Cent. Elizabeth Butler's oils. She painted recreations of battles There's a set from the Napoleonic wars including Waterloo, 'The charge of the Scots Greys' and 'Rorke's Drift'. 'Scots Greys is amazing. Mel Gibson based some of the shots in Braveheart on it.

A Canadian painter Charles Colville was appointed to go to France and Belgium to draw and paint in WWI. There's also Breughel and work by a Norwegian, a member of the royal family who, amazingly drew, whilst in a concentration camp. His work is eerie, delicate and beautiful whilst not glossing over what he saw.

Any Surrealists. Their movement was definately political as well as artistic. Read Andre Breton's Manifestoes de Surrealisme, if you get a chance.

Here is a link that might be useful: surrealism server