When the Purpose album project reached RETNA in 2015, he recognized what the creative team was attempting. Bieber was emerging from a difficult public chapter — the tabloid scrutiny, the missteps, all of it. The album centered on reclamation: faith, second chances, finding direction. The brief for RETNA's script was to express those themes without stating them.
The cover is black and white. Bieber's portrait: head bowed, hands joined as if in prayer. RETNA's symbols layered across the figure — across the chest, around the shoulders. The letters do not resolve into legible words; they carry the emotional register. Contrition, searching, whatever the viewer brings. This is the currency of an illegible script — it must be felt.
The symbols proliferated beyond the album — tour staging, merchandise, billboards. Millions encountered RETNA's alphabet who had never entered a gallery. Children in distant countries wore his script on their shirts without parsing its meaning. That outcome suits the work. They felt something. That is what the artist asks of his audience.
