Popeyit - The strongest believer

Popeyit The Strongest Believer | 2020

Popeyit is a feminine leader who fuses the strengths of Olive Oyl and Popeye into a bold new whole. She is an activist, believing in our inner power and inspiring action. Authentic and sometimes vulnerable, she can be spineless one moment and the strongest believer the next. She embodies collaboration, creativity, and innovation. An eternal optimist, Popeyit sees responsibility and the pursuit of change as pure joy—she loves it, she lives for it!

And… she doesn’t need spinach or iron anchors. Her strength comes from consistent, small actions that remind us that the power to change lies within.

The Blue Period | Popeyit's Exhibition 2024

Following a profound crisis in the life of artist Tal Tenne Czaczkes in 2016, she began an intensive collection of broken toys which she used in an intuitive process of disassembly and reassembly, healing, defining identity, and believing in capability. During this period of crisis, termed the "Blue period", she abandoned old conventions and turned bravely to realizing a vision that would finally emerge as a whole represented by the figure of “Popeyit” – a post-feminist figure of a woman who does not need iron anchors on her arms or to eat spinach to be strong and groundbreaking – to be who she wants to be.

With a passion and curiosity for shiny plastic, Czaczkes began disassembling and creating hybrid sculptural figures, small hybrid creations, among them: angel wings attached to the figure of Venus based on a flying saucer, and in another statuette – a doll’s head attached to a blue plastic hoop. These disturbing connections reference mythological creatures, monsters, and legendary animals like the Minotaur, mermaid, and more. Fictional figures represent archetypes associated with their image.

Desperate | Acrilic on wood | 2015

Sheroine | Assemblage | 2016

For the artist, however, the creation of these hybrids and connections evolved into the construction of her renewed identity. Using the same methodology, she connected Olive Oyl’s head to Popeye’s body and gave the hyrid figure the name "Popeyit".

Connecting Popeye and Olive into a new whole | 2017

Three years later, accidentally, she returned to the figure and began exploring what it seeks to become. She manifested it in her creation through versions in painting and silk prints and connected to the story of Olive – a comic and cartoon character created in 1919 by Elsie Segar. Popeye’s character joined in 1929. According to their storylines, when there is trouble, he gains strength by eating spinach from a can to save his beloved Olive, who cries out to him for help. Czaczkes rescues Olive/Popeyit from traditional feminine weakness, recasting her as an independent woman who directs her own life.

Winnerit | Industrial Oil on Canvas | 2020
The Winnerit was the second painting in the Popeyit series, marking the first time I freed her from spinach and iron anchors, realizing that all her strength—and mine—comes from within. The yellow background was deliberate, a color evoking optimism, power, and the rising sun, capturing the essence of this moment.

Oh oy

Oh boy she CAN! | Industrial oil on wood | 2020
The fourth painting in the Popeyit's series is Oh boy she CAN! – a historical inversion.
This piece features the character of Popeye with the body of Olive Oyl – cheerful, vital, passionate, supportive, and ready to collaborate.
For the first time in the series, a gender reversal is created, where the male figure is painted in pink.

The Queen Mother | Industrial Oil on wood | 2020
For many years, I wanted someone to tell me I’m a queen – to place a crown on my head. It never happened.
Lucky us! A queen doesn’t need a crown.
A queen knows she’s a queen!

Two Good | Industrial oil on canvas | 2020
I created this artwork after painting the first mural together with friends – a realization that when we join forces and act toward a shared goal, we hold the power to create reality.

I love you, MeToo | Acrylic on wood | 2021

Throughout this entire period of creating POPEYIT, a persistent question has occupied my mind: What about Olive?

The painting, I love you – metoo, was inspired by Linoy Ashram and her coach, Ayelet Zussman, when Linoy won the Olympic Gold Medal. I witnessed the partnership, the commitment, the synergy, and each of them's ability to realize their destiny through the other. Linoy could not have won the medal without her coach, and Ayelet could not have fulfilled her destiny without Linoy's dedication and commitment.

To translate this idea: In the years when I myself was a helpless, spineless Olive, friends entered my life -women who suddenly appeared, stood by me, and gave unconditionally. They helped me get up, made sure I didn't fall, and lifted me a little higher each time. Each one of them, in her own way, became the anchor of my life! I could not have navigated that journey without them.

This work is my tribute to all those wonderful women, and especially to the magnificent Olive, because without her, the whole POPEYIT story would never have happened.

concrete
cast
wheat
in the wind
I woke up from a dream with these words, realizing that this is the essence of Popeyit – Standing strong and flexible when needed – Popeye and Olive in the same body.
Sculpture, 30 cm High
2023

Popeye has been referenced in numerous artistic works over the years, for example, he appears in pieces by pop artists: Andy Warhol (Popeye, 1960), Roy Lichtenstein (Popeye in Red and Yellow, 1960), Jeff Koons (Three Popeyes, 2008). In contrast, Olive has not yet received a serious artistic tribute. Czaczkes drew inspiration from these and other artists in composing Popeyit’s character, emerging from the margins to the center stage, equal in position.

Until a Woman Came Along
Industrial oil on canvas
Painted as an homage to the PopArt masters Warhol, Koons, Lichtenstein, and to E.C. Segar, who created Popeye. All Were men who created the masculine Popeye.
2021

Ceci n'est pas une pipe
A self-portrait from the series "Tali's Mustache" inspired by "Dali's Mustache" (Photographed by Philip Helsman), Magritte, and Popeye
2023

Unlike the pop art movement that encouraged consumer culture, Czaczkes promotes the use of consumer remnants, recycling waste, and turning it into the spectacle itself. For her, the disposable becomes reusable, and its use becomes a sustainable celebration as she takes responsibility for herself and the environment.

Phoenix | Sculpture | Crashed leftover Plastic toys and plastic debris | 2023

In recent years, I've been dreaming of turning the leftover toys from my workshops into a new product instead of throwing them in the trash. To reuse this magnificent, colorful resource and act towards zero waste.

So who is Popeyit, and why use toys at all?

Popeyit is a hybrid figure I created by connecting two existing parts – Olive's face and Popeye's body, which enables me to convey a message of women's strength, entrepreneurship, diversity, and innovation.

Popeyit was born from broken toys, from an intuitive creative process of disassembly and assembly until she was revealed as a new whole.

Popeyit is a sustaining figure, a leader for REUSING the exiting, REDUCING consumption, and environmental RESPONSIBILITY, therefore the most natural material to create the sculpture is RECYCLING plastic toys.

The first prototype of a Popeyit sculpture, made out of crushed, broken plastic toys, is ready!