Kimpson Cards
Mixed Media

Kimpson Cards is an exciting piece by the renowned American artist and designer, KAWS, made in 2000. KAWS challenges the notion of art by turning a set of playing cards into a work of fine art that comes in a limited edition of 500. On the playing cards, KAWS appropriates the much-loved cartoon character, Homer Simpson, and renders him in his trademark visual style, giving Homer a skull and crossbone head and crossed out eyes. Unlike many of KAWS’ other prints which use a variety of bright and bold colours, in Kimpson Cards, KAWS privileges a refined white and black palette.

KAWS loves cartoons and frequently incorporates cartoon characters into his artworks. As well as adapting characters from The Simpsons, KAWS has taken inspiration from animation series such as The Smurfs, SpongeBob Square Pants and Astro Boy. As is seen in Kimpson Cards, the cartoon characters are always rendered in KAWS’ unique graphic style. The cartoons are given skull and crossbone heads, crossed out eyes and are often given Mickey Mouse-style gloves.

While KAWS often takes popular cartoon characters as the inspiration for his prints, the artist is well-known for creating his own stock of original cartoon characters.  Notable characters include Companion, Chum, Bendy and Accomplice. These figures appear frequently in KAWS’ prints and have become incredibly popular all over the world. Companion is arguably the most popular of these cartoons, and sculptures of the character have been built for exhibitions in Switzerland, Hong Kong, Taiwan and China.