The inadequacy of emoticons - as artwork for Assemblage Encounter by Dale Copeland

DALE COPELAND dale@tart.co.nz www.dalecopeland.co.nz Dale works in assemblage and collage, the juxtaposition of disparate images and found objects, usually making an observation of the bleaker side of the human condition. ‘The philosophy of the found.’ Her work can be seen on her website www.dalecopeland.co.nz As well as working at her own art, she writes this Virtual Tart website for Taranaki artists and frequently organises group exhibitions to promote the work of these ‘tartists’. In 2014 she and a group of Taranaki artists carried an exhibition of more than 250 artworks to Paris and showed them in Gallery 59 Rivoli. Dance till they drop you. Exult while you can.
	The inadequacy of emoticons, the shallowness of chat. Found objects, clay figure by Roger Morris Cast metal sunshine face, lead typeset symbols ( ) ! in an old wooden box Dale Copeland, 2015, $550
Emoticons. Those little images people use in their emails to compensate for the fact that there can be no body language, no facial signals of state of mind. But how very limited they are. Happy, sad, quizzical ...? To me this clay figure signifies the bottomless depression, the deep despair, which is so hard to put into words, let alone into a single key pressed on the keyboard. The exclamation mark makes the point. Emphatically.