Wayne White: Toony Cardboard Picasso

We love people with a playful attitude and energy. So we honour Wayne White way too late on this site. He should have been the first post! His work is a fusion of puppetry, cartoons, sculpture and painting. He worked as a designer for film and television (remember Pee-wee’s Playhouse?).

His cardboard sculptures are what we need to show here though. He creates them for gallery spaces, parades and festivals. Be true: don’t these giants give you an itch to go make things yourself? His elaborately rendered sculptures are also puppets, with ropes to pull to control their movement. White seems to make no distinction in low- and high art. The puppets recall the costumes that Picasso made for the Parade and the best MAD! characters at the same time.

Costume by Picasso

Wayne White quote from the Miami New Times: “I come for the laughs. I don’t purposefully set out to be youthful or whimsical, but it is there. I own up to it. There’s a part of my work that’s very populist. I’m an entertainer. Totally. But there’s a darker part of my work that comes out in my drawings and paintings, where I take on a darker parts of the American scene. But a big part of my scene is putting on a circus a show. I’m happy to do it with no irony.”

The images we show here are from White’s instagram: go follow him here!

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