The Death of Liberty (Edition of 20) by Joe Blackwell

The Death of Liberty (Edition of 20) by Joe Blackwell

65cm x 65cm

Original created using layered stickers, acrylic paint, and acrylic varnish on reinforced industrial cardboard. Editions are high-resolution reproductions mounted on hand-painted, hand-cut wooden board, and sealed in a high-gloss epoxy resin finish. Sign and Edition on back.

A blue bird rendered in Joe’s signature layered sticker aesthetic. Its form is built from fragments- each sticker a piece of visual noise, shaped into something once familiar.

However, this is not just any bird. It is the relic of a platform once held up as a space for open thought. Renamed, repackaged, and redirected, whilst becoming something else entirely. No longer a place of impartial conversation, but a mechanism of distortion- filtered, manipulated, driven by agenda.

The bird is still, stripped of voice, lost in layers. What remains is the symbol. And all that is left is a dead blue bird, with an ‘X’ covering its eyes.

Featured as part of Selfridges’ Spring/Summer 2025 collection, ‘Obsessions’ in Manchester.