Emoji have officially transcended their status as mere communication tool. We’ve suspected their validity as an artistic medium for a while now, but these new celebrity portraits from Yung Jake confirm it: You can make some badass art with pictograms.
The rapper, known for his wild net art videos and tumblr full of cultural musings, used the emoji-drawing website emoji.ink to craft intensely detailed portraits of the likes of Kim Kardashian, Miley Cyrus, and Wiz Khalifa. And we do mean craft. There’s real artistry happening here! Armed with just a computer mouse and blank screen, he was able contour and shape tiny facial features using pigs, peaches, magic 8 balls.
Taken as a whole, the portraits are as faithful renditions as you can probably get with emoji. But the real joy of Yung Jake’s work is found in the details. Larry David’s puff of balding hair rendered as clouds and old dude sneaker? Brilliant. Miley Cyrus’ face filled in with caution signs? Insightful! Kim Kardashian’s chin chiseled out of a row of chocolate chip cookies? Not sure what that means, but it looks pretty good.
On his Twitter, Yung Jake presented a freshly made emoji portrait of Jerry Seinfeld accompanied by a question to his followers: “Wait guys… what if Seinfeld was made out of emoji?” To which one replied: “It looks just like Seinfeld.” Yep, it really does.
