This poster for Joker feels like a mysterious ritual

“I used to think that my life was a tragedy. But now I realize, it’s a comedy.” - Arthur Fleck

Arthur’s macabre dance creates a compulsive smile which reflects all the pain, dissemblance and consuming disharmony of today’s society, exactly in the same powerful way as Joker the movie itself does. This sinister graphic piece was created by Aleksander Walijewski, a Polish-based graphic designer, who crafted it for the first time in April 2019, influenced just by the first trailer for the film.

“I was really fascinated with the portraiture of Joker in the first trailer. I watched it a few times, I kept thinking about it and this idea just popped into my mind out of nowhere. The trailer was, of course, my biggest inspiration but as you can see, the visual effect of the final work can remind you of some surrealist artists such as Salvador Dali. The poster shows many weirdly twisted figures of Joker holding parts of his face, including of course his smile, on fabric-like material. This whole situation is unstable, dramatic but also a bit ridiculous and has this carnival feeling. At least this is what I was going for,” says Aleksander for whom the classic Polish School of Posters (with the rise in the 1980s), strongly inspired by the surrealistic movement, was undoubtedly his biggest influence.

“The way those artists created posters was unconventional and very unique visually, but what I adore most in those works is the idea, reduced to this kind of visual riddle by use of metaphors and symbols. This is definitely one of the things that are worth continuing in,” says the author whose imaginative works combine the aesthetics of painting with a simple but fitting metaphor of the story itself.

There is nothing left but hope that Aleksander will cover also the upcoming The Batman movie. Discover more of his symbolist art on his Facebook page.