Kitsch

something of tawdry design, appearance, or content created to appeal to popular or undiscriminating taste.

6" x 6"

140# hot-press watercolor paper

acrylic paint, ink, watercolor pencil, pen, paint marker, collage

I dislike this word. It either makes me think of Regina Spektor’s 2003 album (Soviet Kitsch), or one of those big curio cabinets filled with nonsense. I have sentimental items, but I’m not a fan of knick knacks.

Because kitsch makes me think of assorted useless objects on shelves, I tried to think of a parody of collecting things. I have nothing against POP figurines, and I know people with insane collections of toys/action figures and such. Those are actually pretty cool. I also knew I had a POP logo in my collage file because I have one (Baby Groot). My husband made a joke about collecting imaginary friends, so that led to the idea of an invisible POP figure. The box is just empty.

Just for kicks I looked for a Space Ghost POP. Not only do they make one… it’s clear. Turns out my parody is a little too close to reality.

The color choices are because I had just gotten new art supplies, which happened to contain those 3 colors of paint. You can’t see it in the photo, but there’s a plastic overlay on the front of the box.

For a word I don’t like, this piece took way too long. I was going to add the number detail in the corner and maybe a sketch on the side of the box, but I got tired of working on it and ready to move on.