Deer Lakes High School students use emoji paintings to encourage frank conversations

Art students at Deer Lakes High School are hoping students and staffers will stop and see the emoji.

Not the cartoon-like images on their cellphones, but ones on the walls.

Emoji allow people to express emotion digitally through a variety of faces that display different expressions and picture characters. They also can be used to express opinions and personality. Most are sent via text message or on social media platforms.

“The Emoji Project” challenges people to look up from their cellphones and have conversations about the roughly two dozen paintings of emoji expressions hanging in various locations around the school. Those conversations can be about how other people are doing, if people are hiding their feelings, and how people’s experiences with a particular emoji compare with other people’s experiences.

“Those emojis are so small on our phones, and we’re constantly looking at our phones, but it’s a way that we communicate,” said art teacher Christy Culp. “We expanded it to put it around the building so people would look up from their phones and see emojis that they may relate to or may not relate to.”

The idea for the project came from Culp’s students.

One day, when they were goofing off, senior Liz Kepple painted an angry face on a piece of scrap paper. The students all signed the painting and put it on the whiteboard for Culp to find. Culp said the painting made her think of emoji.

Her students each painted an emoji that they liked, used a lot or identified with. There are grumpy, angry faces and happy, silly ones.

All 25 were placed in random spots around the building.

“That was the point: to just kind of make them jump out at people or be in places where they didn’t expect them,” Culp said. “It’s kind of like emotions. We experience things that we don’t expect. Putting these images in random places allows people to experience that the same way.”

Kepple designed her emoji after her favorite metal singer, Joakim Brodén. His image has aviator sunglasses, a goatee, a Mohawk and a grumpy disposition.

“He kind of looks like Mr. T,” she said.

Freshman Lexy Stepp painted a neon-colored alien with swirly eyes. The background of the painting has drips of the same neon colors.

“It looks cool, and it’s very overwhelming,” Stepp said. “The background is kind of melting, and the eyes are just kind of crazy — like you’re going to explode.”

Stepp said she told a few people about the project, and they were receptive. She said she’s seen some posted on other people’s Snapchat stories.

“They’ll record them when they’re walking by and post it,” she said. “I just think it’s cool that people are seeing your artwork and they kind of like it so they post it.”