Different Side of Kawaii
I puke kawaii. That’s what ArtisticSole does while she’s living la vida lolita. If you know anything about Japan even without watching anime or reading manga, you might know the term “kawaii”. If you watch anime, you are overwhelmed with kawaii. Even my google spellcheck knows kawaii and doesn’t get underlined in red like many of the non-English terms I use. If you’re like me, you like the art in anime and in manga. How characters are drawn, how the setting is illustrated, the colors used, the tiniest attention to detail; this is important you. There is someone who is creative enough who has the ability to put it all together to make watchers happy. ArtisticSole is an artist; who chooses colors masterfully, uses lines to create images, that pukes kawaii. What kawaii means to the individual can differ, but when I went to her art show; I wanted to scream “Kawaiiiiiii!”
It’s nice to see a lady artist exhibiting her work outside of a con. In a con, you’re really in a way “preaching to a choir”; you’ve got a built-in audience for the most part. Exhibit your work in a place that is free to the public invites in those who may not normally be privy to the genre. It’s expanding the horizons of others. I’m not an art critic so I can’t say “You can see with that stroke of the brush, the artist was feeling (insert random emotion) as she moved across the canvas”. I can say “That’s a piece of work that I would like in my home office.” That is not something I say often or actually truly feel like a piece of work meant something to me. Most of the time, the art doesn’t speak to me enough to want to actually buy it. Her work did. Not to mention, she came across as a really nice person. She has never met me before but she greeted me with a hug like we’d known each other forever. Oh, and did I mention she’s a tattoo artist? Add that to her skill set. Unfortunately, I don’t have a super awesome camera so my photos don’t fully capture her work but I want to share them with you anyway. I didn’t get any shots of her manga drawing and there were some banners that I missed so I’m a little bummed about that. I still got my favorites, though!
I know this post wasn’t about a specific anime series but I have mentioned that my posts may also be Japan oriented. Though this artist is not Japanese, her work is definitely Japanese manga/anime inspired. If you want to know more about her, feel free to check out her Twitter and her blog!
THE LADY AND ANIME 
Love this! Her work is amazing. And KAWAII!
Yeah, she’s pretty good. It would be nice to have an ounce of her talent.
Her art is definitely interesting and I feel almost as if she is parodying the style since some of her paintings are surprisingly grotesque and not very cute. The phrase, “I puke kawaii” certainly seems to embody this at least. Of course this is just my personal take and like you said, everyone sees something different. To me, the art isn’t about being cute but about taking cute to an unattractive level, which I think is an interesting experiment and the artist is clearly very talented to be able to invoke this, I think.
I can appreciate your take on it because though I don’t find them grotesque, I find them to be another side of kawaii.There is an ugly side of kawaii and to be quite honest sometimes I want to puke at the overwhelming cuteness in anime. Strangely enough, I saw her work and found it to be cute but not in the conventional sense.