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A.V. Phibes on the Influences and Inspirations for Sad Kitty Sad Kitties: Continuing the proud legacy...
On Dick Bruna and Kawaii...
It turns out Bruna was also influential to the whole Japanese "cute" aesthetic (Kawaii). I love Japanese character art and have read essays on the whole Kawaii aesthetic, which usually creates cuteness in the form of baby-like characters with various attributes of helplessness: short limbs, lack of mouth, etc. The influence of these styles all came into play with the creation of Sad Kitty. "Sad" art and the creation of Sad Kitty
Integral to the origin of Sad Kitty is the fact that the creation stemmed from breaking up with my then-boyfriend. I was not actually supposed to be doing sad art that day. I was supposed to be making cute/sexy art, but it just wasn't happening. In a state of fragility, vulnerability and forlornness, my mind naturally turned to kittens. Sad, sad kittens. What could express heartbreak better than that?
When I finished the doodle that is now Sad Kitty, I knew I had gotten it perfectly. That night I colored the picture, added the caption "Why is Kitty sad? Probably because of you." and the rest is history... |
Kitties,
and particularly sad ones have always been on the periphery of
my existence. I was probably only three or four when I was first
exposed to the artist known as Gig in the form of the painting
at left. I remember being rather attached to the picture. At one
point my Mom covered it with something else, and I remember my
relief when I found the kitty picture still underneath it. Since
then, I've been exposed to the wider gamut of Gig art, featuring
sad puppies and sad jungle animals, but the Sad Kittens are still
my favorites. I consider Gig the undisputed master of big-eyed
sad art. When people think of sad and big-eyed, they always think
of Keene, but, in my opinion, Gig kicks Keene's ass. I know them's
fightin' words, but I am ready to throw down.
Of
course, I have a personal weakness for sad animals. I think sad
animals seem more helpless and vulnerable and more inspiring of
sympathy. One time I was in a toy store with a friend and she
held up the Little Golden Book "The Timid Little Kitten"
and was waving it in my face until I was practically on the floor
in a fetal position. I then determined that if I were a supervillain,
the secret weapon to use against me would be showing me pictures
of sad kittens until I was rendered immobile. When it comes to
depicting sad, there is nothing for me that tops a sad kitten.
I
think most artists have a story of some "moment" when
they saw a piece of art that effected them to an extent that it
changed their own approach to art. Mine was sometime back in the
mid-nineties when I first saw the work of Dick Bruna. A guy I
was dating had the postcard at left hanging on his wall and I
was so fixated on it, that he ended up giving it to me. I was
taken with the way the image was so minimal, yet so perfectly
composed. 
I
started collecting Bruna's "Miffy" books, which were
page after page of these same kind of perfectly-composed minimal
images. I really think he's brilliant, although there are plenty
of people who don't know what the hell I'm talking about. I really
love very reductive art that says what it needs to say perfectly
with as little as possible. There is even an entire book, "Miffy
is Crying" featuring a weeping Miffy.
I've
had a long-standing fascination with the sad aesthetic. When I
learned how to use the "liquefy" filter in photoshop,
I spent a week distorting pictures of my myself and all my friends
into weeping babies. At the onset of the Iraq war, some friends
had me make a weeping Saddam Hussein. Get it? SAD-dam Hussein? Ha! 
I
doodled a few different variations, the first being the standard
big-eye version which was a sort of Gig/anime hybrid. This then
gave way to more stylized doodles, in my attempts to represent
the emotion visually.
