Always Smiling By Russell Noto Analysis

The nature of human emotions, and why we hide them
Always Smiling, always is a piece is by Russell Noto created in 2014, and is located on the first floor of the Jen library. This piece jumped out at me for many reasons; it had this complex and thought out color scheme, you had light and happy colors in one and then ominous dark colors to really pop out against the white wall background, and with it consisting of two parts you had to do a double take to ponder if they were just obscenely close, or if these very different works of art were actually one whole in the greater layout of everything. After you get to spend some time truly appreciating this piece the overall idea of how people feel we must hide certain emotions becomes more and
This one seems to fit in with the other art creations at the Jen library though, because around it the other works of art are almost the same in size, this helps give you an idea at how very large this other piece is. Unlike the first piece, this one has a wood base that is left unpainted or stained. Then close to the bottom left corner it has wood planks with white plaster on them all laid pointing outwards from a circle in the center, it reminds one very much of a giant daisy without a yellow center, unlike the top one you get a happy feeling because of this bright beautiful flower. The planks however are torn at the end, and this beautiful daisy starts to look more battered and worn down, it’s kind of sad. Placed above the hole where the yellow pollen of a flower should lay is three rows of five blocks. All of the blocks are made of foam and painted a bright pink, and they are all lined up in straight rows and are uniform, except for one at the bottom left, that one is slightly tilted. In the end I loved how this looked, and when going deeper into the meaning you can really see why this connects so well with the other darker art
You have a dog that is growling, this indicates that it is afraid and is showing aggression, something that is not all supposed to be happy, but it is made to look like it is smiling by turning the painting upside down. The dog is supposed to represent humans, and it shows how we are sometimes in a situation of discomfort, anger, or pain and yet we are made to smile and act like everything is fine against our will. This is due to pressure about keeping up appearances, or just not being able to share your feelings with others because of receiving backlash from them, we see how people care so much about not appearing weak, or being an emotional inconvenience on others that we just pretend that everything is fine when it’s