Smiles Сannot Hide From Our Sight

The project is based on my interest in Japanese post-war manga from the 50s and 60s. While studying and analyzing the narratives that Japanese manga artists worked with, I noticed that there can be a reflection of difficult and traumatic events behind the cute and naive pictures. Manga can thus help convey what lies beyond the linguistic form.

While working on the project, I studied the philosophy of Jacques Lacan. I took his quote from the essay “The Symbolic. The Imaginary. The Real” for the title of my exhibition: “... cannot hide from our sight...”, adding the word “smiles” in the beginning. If you look at the artworks, you can notice, how all the characters smile, laugh and make faces. They are literally bursting with laughter. But something hidden behind a smile still eludes our sight; a smile is just a mask.

The project features seven paintings and twelve ceramic artworks.