Emojis are getting the fine art treatment they deserve
Emojis have come a long way from their humble origin as a region-specific phone keyboard option. Beyond the upcoming official additions to the emoji alphabet (emojibet?), they’ve spawned unofficial variations, products, and now, high art.
BuzzFeed artist Crystal Ro took our favorite expressive pictograms and imagined them as works by famous artists. While some of them are a little bit no-brainer (really, the wave emoji as… itself?), we’ve highlighted some of our favorites from the collection:
Edgar Degas — “Women with Bunny Ears”
Gustav Klimt — “Kiss”
Edvard Munch — “Face Screaming in Fear”
You can check out the rest of the set here. But this is far from emoji’s first foray into the fine art world. There’s Able Parrish’s Instagram-based Emoji Daydream series, which whimsically imagines emojis IRL:
Then there’s artist Liza Nelson’s literal interpretation of IRL emojis, which recreate the icons in the physical world:
Vince McKelvie’s emoji.ink website lets you create your own digital collages, using only emoji themselves. While amateur emoji artists like myself have plenty to play with…
…rapper and artist Yung Jake used emoji.ink to create amazing celebrity portraits:
And while there’s plenty of emoji-based art in the digital realm, the little icons have also inspired plenty of touchable projects as well, from balloons…
…to cupcakes.
We’re living in a world where we can snack on, create with, and admire emoji art — a truly golden age of “icon”-ic art. And with the new emoji releases coming out later this year (still no “fingers crossed” emoji), we’re only going to be seeing more emoji expression, something we are truly *prayer hands* about.
