Sticker Book

As children many of us would collect sticker books featuring their favourite cartoon characters. In this artwork I present several of these in a distorted way.

To create this artwork I took illustrations and separated them into individual parts. Using illustration software I then randomly arranged them.

Sticker Book is an artwork about nostalgia and childhood. Fairy tales told to us when we’re young fill us with wonder, inspire us, and fill our imaginations. As we grow up we start to see the more sinister side to them. The companies that tell these stories are themselves problematic. These empires use IP and copyright laws to control exactly who gets to tell these stories and how they are told. By allowing them to amass such a large amount of stuff we have enabled them to take a hold of the very notion of childhood, imagination, and innocence.

Sticker Book was commissioned by Dr Rachel Marsden for the Wonder exhibition at the Herbert Art Gallery & Museum.