Executed in 2012, T.N.O.N-Y and T.N.O.N-F are two monumental examples that showcase KAWS’s iconic imagery of subverted and altered cartoonlike characters drawn from popular culture. By abstracting his subjects to such a degree that renders them nearly unrecognizable, the artist’s immediately identifiable interventions have drawn comparisons to the works of 20th century masters such as Ellsworth Kelly, Kenneth Noland and Frank Stella. Oscillating between the ostensibly fixed antagonistic traditions of Pop Art and geometric abstraction, KAWS brilliantly revitalizes the fields of both figuration and abstraction to interrogate our relationship with consumerism, advertising and pop culture.
The present works form part of his discrete 2012 series of 50 vertical canvases titled THE NATURE OF NEED. Pulling the viewer’s eye in several directions, this chapter of KAWS’s oeuvre is defined by its Baroque palette of dramatic black juxtaposed with bright hues, marking a palpable shift in the artist’s practice. In THE NATURE OF NEED, KAWS contorted fragments of the facial features of SpongeBob SquarePants and experimented with reducing them to their barest expressions. Forcing the viewer to both take in the series in its entirety and examine the intricacies of each individual panel, KAWS tapped into the Pop Art tradition of seriality and variation. This series was thus a way for KAWS to simultaneously echo ideas put forth by his predecessors while making his own playful mark on the genre.
T.N.O.N-Y and T.N.O.N-F are characterized by hyper-zoomed-in lines that vaguely portray an eye, a nose, a mouth or a tooth. By inflating the scale to such a degree, a fresh personality is given to these once familiar forms, affirming the robust conceptual backbone of transformation in KAWS’s work. As meaning is increasingly stripped from and assigned to logotypes at a disorienting rate, KAWS’ T.N.O.N-Y and T.N.O.N-F paintings push viewers to consider the manipulation, representation and consumption of media in the contemporary landscape.