During the lockdown I often spent time looking through the pictures of photo reporters around the world. All the photographs had a common element -- I saw people from different countries wearing masks on their faces. That observation visually represented to me the ongoing global feeling of anxiety, longing, fear, depression, anger, pain and instability. The effects of the pandemic all over the world were both extremely sad but also, strangely, I could feel a connection to humanity, that all of us were in that kind of boat together. A trouble shared is a trouble halved.
It was September 2020, six months through the pandemic of coronavirus disease when I decided to print thousands of stickers and began this project. At its core, the smiley is like any other symbol -- a visual that has been assigned a specific meaning. I believe that I was at first amused by sticking around positive symbols.
Then I became somehow obsessed with the icon. I wanted to picture the chaotic motion taking place in the world and in myself, seeing in the smiley a kind of collective mask. I was perceiving the world as it was inhabited by people with an anxious hysteria to appear and be identified. “You’re in the space, can’t fully make sense because you’re up and down left and right. Self-doubt. You don’t know where you're headed and can't figure out how to get there”. Essentially I’m trying to make sense of a world that is consisted of connectivity and diversity.
Sticker Size: 2.5" x 2.5"; Material: 4 mil. White Vinyl High Gloss (UV)
This process of ideas led me to draw stickers and make compositions of floating smileys. The collages were created by overlapping the eyes (the volatility of social connections) and the monotypes are grids of decaying smileys (the volatility of opinions). All the smiling faces were made with the same dimensions of the original stickers (diameter of 2.5 inches).
