With Joker, I wanted to create a confrontation not just with death, but with the masks we wear to survive. The skull, painted like a performer, draws direct inspiration from the film character Joker: a figure who is both deeply broken and disturbingly free. In him, I saw the perfect metaphor a man who laughs while falling apart, who hides pain behind theatricality, whose madness is a mirror to a society that refuses to see.
 
This skull carries that same tension. It’s not just death it’s death in disguise. Painted with the smile of someone who has nothing left to lose, it challenges the viewer to look beyond appearances. To ask: what does it mean to perform happiness? To cover our decay with colors and pretend we’re fine?
 
Joker is my way of giving death a face we recognize not to comfort us, but to provoke. To hold up a mirror to the roles we play, the masks we hide behind, and the beauty we sometimes find even in despair.
 
60x60cm Editon of 99
180x180xm unique
 
Material & Frame Options on request.
 
Created 2019
Signed
Alexander Palacios