Bad Bad Kitti: Atlanta's Rising Star
by EAM Staff

Bad Bad Kitti has been painting her entire life. Up until two years ago she was mostly working in pastels. She then decided that she was going to seriously pursue an art career and she switched primarily to acrylics. She describes her style as passive aggressive, "...that is the best way to describe my art, because some of it is edgy. But the colors are really inviting but then some of the concepts are more edgy."

While her works have a very strong feminine emotions tied to them she also paints whatever she feels, that will evoke emotion. She's working on two series right now; Dirty Little Cupcakes and Robot Pinups both are keeping her pretty busy.

One of the pieces from Bad Bad Kitti's portfolio that captured my attention was her homage to Jean-Michel Basquiat. It's such a strong work. She showed it and sold it at one of City of Ink's gallery shows. She said she was really drawn to Basquiat because he, unlike many black artists was able to create such a different and strong body of work people didn't recognize it as traditional black art. She said this is why she goes by Bad Bad Kitti, because without a name associated with the work, the viewer cannot differentiate skin color.

She was the visual arts winner of the Sugar Art and Fashion Show for Atlanta, Georgia. Her close friend, Megan, who is a big supporter of her work, called her and said that the show was coming to town and she thought her work would be a really good fit for it. "So she forwarded me the information and I started looking at it and I was like you know what, I'm going to do this." She got in touch with Timmery Turner, the Director of the Sugar Art and Fashion Show, and was impressed with her energy and passion for what she is doing. "It was really inspiring to see her doing it on her own and being really outgoing. Her personality is really awesome", Bad Bad Kitti said.

I asked Bad Bad Kitti if she knew about the chance to be in the magazine and she said she did, but she wanted to stay humble and not go into it like, "...yeah I got this in the bag." She knew she had a lot of work, so she decided she would take everything that would fit in her car and just try to get her name out there. And she said the response was really amazing especially to her Dirty Little Cupcakes series, which is loosely based on the idea of Garbage Pale Kids. She said she even sold a piece that night which was icing on the cake.

Bad Bad Kitti has had some positive success selling her work. She has a group of artist friends who show work at the City of Ink Tattoo & Gallery on Walker Street in Atlanta and often enters her work there to exercise her skills and see what her peers are doing. She said City of Ink Gallery is where she has sold three of her pieces. "I'm just so thankful for them, they're the start of me doing art shows. It isn't like they are biased and say 'You know we know you and your art is in'. They actually vote on it based on whether you are talented or not."

Bad Bad Kitti attended the Art Institute of Atlanta originally for computer animation and then switched to graphic design. The stress of the animation was too much stress and she ran out of money nine months before she was to finish her degree but she figured it was okay because the last little bit was all just fine tuning.

When she is not painting she works for a clothing company. It is her goal to become a full time artist and that is what she is working toward. If you would like to connect to Bad Bad Kitti you can find her on Facebook, Tumblr, Twitter and Instagram.