Love and joy in paintings by Yuri Matsika

A leather worker with his frightening types of clothes prepares after painted themselves using chimney soot as they participate in a programme within the September 6 celebrations, in Balikesir, Turkey on September 06, 2019. According to the story, “Tulutabaklar” were painting themselves with ash and wearing goatskin or sheep skin to frighten the Greek soldiers occupying Balikesir during the National Struggle period. Every year on September 6, Tulutabaklar perform this ritual as part of the celebration of liberation of the city for 96 years. (Photo by Ali Atmaca/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)

People watch participants, whose faces are painted as popular Mexican figure “Catrina”, during the annual Catrina Fest, part of Day of the Dead celebrations, in Mexico City, Mexico, November 2, 2016. (Photo by Edgard Garrido/Reuters)

An artist shows her hands after working on a wall as part of a campaign to call for coexistence and the renouncement of violence through the painting of walls in Sanaa, Yemen March 15, 2015. (Photo by Mohamed al-Sayaghi/Reuters)

Iranian artist and designer Mehdi Ghadyanloo, with the help of the municipality, is slowly brightening up the city of Tehran one wall at a time. The 33-year old street artist has been painting murals and walls in Tehran for the last 5 years age, during which he’s reported to have painted over one hundred walls.

Men stroll past roadside vendors as a painted truck makes its way through the busy street in Kabul, Afghanistan, November, 1961. (Photo by Henry S. Bradsher/AP Photo via The Atlantic)

Photographer Jonathan Icher has developed a very literal and very bizarre expression of national pride, one that involves body paint, fine cuisine and modelesque facial expressions. May we present "Fat Flag," an inexplicable series that pairs a photographic subject with his/her respective painted flag and national fare.