I hate the way I look in all my identifications. The flat lighting and angle do nothing to flatter me, plus the awkwardness of staring straight into the camera. I wish Ola Liola had done my passport photo! In her delightful set of Passport Faces, she uses the same elements that I hate from my own ID photos to draw animals. The dead-on expressions from these critters put a wild twist on the clinical nature of ID photos—a passport between urban and natural life. There’s also an interesting balance within her style between the realistic intensity with which her lifelike stares are drawn, and the fantastical designs and colors she fills them in with. Liola uses watercolors and ink to adorn animals with elaborate tattoo-like patterns, continuing her art’s dialogue between the wilderness and cosmopolitan.
