START SMILING
START SMILING
2026
START SMILING is a collaborative conceptual portrait series that was born from the combined vision of performance artist Cat Sweet and visual artist Philip Ringler. The images were made in a mostly dead mall in Newark, CA with a shared understanding that the mall itself would function as a theatrical set for improvised portraits. Dystopian time-travel was a conceptual point of departure.
The intention was to create a series of images where subject and environment, model and photographer, spontaneity and control are all equally important. All pictures were made with an Iphone to limit attention from mall security. The artists allowed the process of exploring the mall to determine how they chose to interact with it. Their shared aesthetic sensibility and dark humor seemlessly guided the decisions for each environmental portrait. Philip and Cat evaded CCTV, snuck into off-limits areas, used props like an inflatable machine gun, and allowed the uncanny valley-ness of the mall itself to fuel the creative process.
The end result is a series of photographs that form a non-linear, anti-narrative, anti-conventional portrait of two artists working as one.
Philip Ringler and Cat Sweet
About Cat:
Cat Sweet is a multi-talented performance artist including experimental sideshow and conceptual burlesque. She is an accomplished writer, poet, and multi-media artist. Visit her WEBSITE and IG to learn more.
Collaboration Origin Story:
On Valentine’s Day 2013, during a particularly tumultuous transitional period, Philip witnessed a live performance by Cat that would change his life forever. There was something so potent, so raw and enigmatic that it caused tears to flow and waves of energy to be released. For Philip, the experience was the definition of catharsis. Roy Orbison, slowly tearing valentines cards, staples into skin, shredding effigies: hypnotic ritualistic madness. It was not the standard kind of sideshow meets burlesque, it was something else, something decidedly next level. Philip later sent Cat pictures he made from the show, explained how important the experience was, and that began a shared professional admiration that would blossom into the glorious friendship/collaboration they have today.