Austin Ansbro reimagines pop culture with melted mascots

“My technique is simple: I never second-guess my marks,” says Austin Ansbro, a Phildadelphian caricaturist who is as dedicated to his faith (at night, he works as a janitor and handyman at a church in the suburbs) as he is dedicated to his clients. “The subjects of my artwork are entirely driven by my clients’ preferences, focusing on the pop culture icons or cartoon characters they want reimagined in my unique style.” Austin does more than just capture the essence of beloved cartoon characters such as Garfield, Hello Kitty, Peter Griffin, Wile E. Coyote and Doraemon – he launches an attack on their likeness, extracting their recognisable colours and stylisations into a melting pot of coloured pencils. “I love the challenge of transforming characters that are already personal and meaningful to clients into original, one-of-a-kind versions.”

The result is a furious blend of the fluid linework of rubber hose animation, classic cartoon-inspired “pie eyes”, and Japanese chibis, also known as “super deformation” style – which is very fitting for these distorted drawings. Somehow through the exploration of so many intellectual properties, Austin finds his own signature style within the very mascots that defined generations of drawing techniques and tropes. “My drawings are straightforward, with no deeper meaning beyond what you see,” says Austin, who lets the images do the talking in an arts landscape that is in need of a semiotic explosion.