PHOTOS: Forget Selfies, One Artist’s Sketched Portraits Have Taken Over Twitter in the Balkans · Global Voices
A collection of artist <PERSON>'s Twitter avatar portraits. Image by <PERSON>, used with permission.
In early February 2014, the Twitter feeds of users in several Balkan countries saw a drastic visual change. Over the next several weeks, instead of the headshots or selfies people tend to use as their avatars on Twitter, ink and pencil drawings of their previous avatars took over the popular social network.
The man behind the wave of avatar portraits is young artist and medical doctor <PERSON> from Montenegro, better known to a wider audience on Twitter as @sirivoje. Currently a student of the School of Visual Arts of the University of Podgorica in Montenegro, <PERSON> opened his Twitter profile after his professors suggested he use the network to follow other artists and promote his own work.
One of the dozens of avatar portraits by <PERSON>. Image courtesy of the artists. Used with permission.
Always ready and willing to chat (or draw) online, <PERSON> answered a few questions for Global Voices regarding his work and use of social media:
Profesori su smatrali da su moji radovi zreli i da zavrijeđuju da budu predstavljeni široj javnosti, a da mi društvene mreže pružaju mogućnost da skrenem pažnju na svoje umijeće . U početku sam crtao karikature koje su naišle na pozitivne reakcije, ali sam poslije nekog vremena dobio želju za promjenom u kreativnom smislu. Tačnije, uželio sam se klasičnog crteža olovkom i tušem koji sam potpuno zapostavio. Smatrao sam da je idealan način da se vratim u formu upravo to – da crtam portrete korisnika tvitera.
The professors considered my work mature and worthy of being presented to a wider audience, while social media would allow me to draw attention to my abilities. At first I drew caricatures, which were met with positive reactions, but after some time I wanted change, in a creative sense. 260
Specifically, I missed doing classic pencil and ink drawings that I had neglected completely [for some time]. I thought this would be the ideal way to get that [technique] back in shape – to draw portraits of Twitter users.
Another example of how the artist manages to capture the personalities of people he has never met face-to-face. Image courtesy of <PERSON>. Used with permission.
The result certainly got the artist attention from Twitter users from several countries in the region, and quickly. Soon enough, people were asking for their portraits, many offering to pay for the original drawing and wondering what else the artists could do. <PERSON>'s talent clearly shines through in the simple, black-and-white, yet lively and true-to-life portraits of people he has never seen and knows only through their 140-character tweets and avatars on the network.
The talented <PERSON>, however, says that there are no particular rules to how he picks his “models” on Twitter and that the most important deciding factor is being “intrigued by a person's facial features”. In his chat with GV, he explained how it all works:
Ljudi se zahvaljuju na različite načine kada im pošaljem portret, nude mi i profesionalnu saradnju. Član jednog alternativnog muzičkog sastava iz Beograda mi je ponudio da za njegov bend izdizajniram omot albuma. Takođe, dobio sam ponudu da ilustrujem knjigu poezije, što mi je oduvijek bila velika želja. Ali, ono što mene najviše raduje jesu tri ozbiljna prijedloga koja se tiču organizovanja izložbi mojih radova. 260