“Get Happy™”

Ink, mixed-media collage on paper, 2024

This piece interrogates the language and imagery of consumerist femininity. Sourcing from high-fashion ads, perfume taglines, and editorial gloss, the collage deconstructs the aspirational female image into fragments of desire, performance, and contradiction. Painted in stark black and white, the central figure is both exalted and disoriented — a model of empowerment trapped within a system that commodifies her expression.

Words like “happy” and “fashion” swirl in Helvetica, bold but weightless. Bodies become cutouts; emotions become slogans. “Get Happy™” asks: who gets to own beauty, and who gets consumed by it?