Creepy Cute

What does make an art piece a million-dollar art piece? There are so many different answers to this question from so many different points of view. In my case, one answer is that the piece should overcome all the barriers, touch the soul of its audience and stimulate deep feelings. But how can one achieve this? To answer this question I studied a painting by an Iranian contemporary artist Hossain Zenderoudi which has been sold for 1.6 million dollars in Christie’s. The first step is to understand what feelings are arising from this painting. So I asked my friends, What do you feel when you look at this painting? Almost everyone pointed out the faces that are gazing at them. Some saw them being cute, some saw them being creepy, and some saw both.

Upon realizing that being creepy and cute at the same time are the two main qualities in this painting which is achieved by the masterful use of calligraphy elements, the next step was to find the tools and techniques to create those aesthetics simultaneously. I did a practice run and tried to create a three-dimensional art piece with the same qualities. Each quality can be found in certain parameters of the artwork. For instance, the cuteness is caused by the simplicity and roundness of the form while creepiness is derived from distortion, over scaling and breaking the fourth barrier. I used a combination of blobby forms and figurative distortion to create creepy cuteness in various angles. Then I added calligraphy to add depth and mystery to the piece.