In the manifesto written on his website, Anthony Ausgang expresses his mission to eradicate the presence of the human figure in art as much as possible, opting to leave the documentation of society to the photojournalists. Instead, Ausgang concentrates his work on depicting human struggles through cartoon cats that take many surreal forms. “In the ritual dances of Bali, many types of animal deities are represented by actors wearing stylized masks; anthropomorphic gods, such as cats, were prime time players in ancient Egyptian polytheism. The adulation that certain cartoon characters get in contemporary Western culture is just the most modern version of this, and they get worshipped at megastores,” Ausgang wrote in his manifesto. The artist has a solo show coming up on February 1 at Space:Eight in St. Augustine, FL. For this exhibition, he has created a series of monochromatic works full of multi-limbed and masked cats that invite an interesting guessing game of identity. Take a look at some of the images from the show below.
