Anna Wisbey

Imagine this: It is the middle of the night, and you’re lying in bed. You can’t sleep because there are a million random thoughts swirling around your head racing a mile a minute. You remember the memories, the insecurities, the words you wish you hadn’t said, and all the words you wish you had, the regrets. Trying to understand everything better, your brain starts editing down these memories, insecurities, and relationships into short neat one to two sentences phrases. The phrases then begin to scroll by on loop as if they are on some sort of ticker. You can’t escape them. Some of the phrases are funny, while other ones are sad and reflect darker emotions of pain or heartbreak. The only way you find you can let them go is to write them down. You are me.

Not Everything is About You, but Some Things are is a series of digitally designed posters that express and release these thoughts that keep me up at night. When placed next to each other, these pieces share themes of inner discovery, heartbreak, as well as growing up and becoming an adult in your early twenties. The medium of the poster allows for freedom when it comes to the graphics. My thoughts are not all the same font, size, and color, so neither is my art. Finding inspiration in the comedic stylings of David Shrigley and Lily Tomlin, I like to play with the visual humor in a piece. I often find myself giving a poster with a sadder phrase a happier tone through typeface and color pairings, choosing to go against what the viewer might initially expect it to look like. This playfulness allows for something that started from a deep and personal place to become relatable and accessible to an audience of my peers experiencing the same struggle of becoming an adult.

These posters are my way of coming to terms with the words unsaid, the words that I lay awake thinking about, and the words that I wish I dared to say. My goal is that my audience will be able to use my pieces as a starting point to come to terms with the same words in their own life.