There is something to be said for knowing “where an artist came from.” Of course, not all artists will clearly signpost their origins within their work – but given the personal nature of artistic expression, a viewer will often have a sort of lightbulb moment when they learn a particular fact about an artist’s backstory. For anyone viewing a classic Todd White painting of colourful, exaggerated, and gloriously irreverent characters, the lightbulb moment is the fact that White started his career not as a fine artist, but in cartoon animation.
Many of White’s biographies and interviews will specifically mention Todd’s position as lead character designer on Spongebob Squarepants – perhaps because the show is famous enough to guarantee the aforementioned lightbulb moment, but also because this was the last position that White held before moving on to pursue his dream of becoming a fine artist. Rather than eschewing his previous work in children’s television, however, White set about using his distinctive style to create a unique genre of figurative works, filled with fascinating characters and playful details.
White’s ability to capture the essence of a character in a simplified, graphic style is more than a nod to his past as an animator, however. His artistic inspiration flows from the concepts of character and story, each of which is channelled into the figures that populate his scenes. In fact, White will frequently start each artwork by developing an imagined narrative, determining the story before the images. Often, the artwork’s characters and visual framework will be built up around White’s initial title.
The characters in White’s artworks betray their personalities through their appearance, with expression and body language hinting at their lives and loves; their faults, foibles, and temptations. White has spoken about the vital part that body language plays at revealing the inner life of a character, in particular their hands, an aspect of his work that cannot go unnoticed by any viewer. Finding the hands in a Todd White painting often gives the viewer a chance to dive more deeply into the scene, enjoying the hints given by expressive gestures and story-driven props. Once again, we might find ourselves looking for links to White’s background in animation here, and it’s certainly present in the way he poses and positions the players in his scenes: the lines, pose and posture of each figure pointing at the desires that lie behind the surface.
The sophisticated – and frequently seductive – elements of White’s work, however, call us away from the world of children’s animations, and reveal more about the world that the artist himself spends time observing and recording… to any viewer, White’s habit of people-watching is certainly just as evident as his stylistic influences. With so many different personalities represented in his work, they could only have come from life. And, while White’s work is often associated with glamour and glitz, with many of his scenes taking place in penthouses and at cocktail parties, his love of unique and intriguing characters goes far beyond the obvious appeal of the one percent. In a Todd White painting or limited edition, a collector can easily seek out figures that represent and celebrate the everyday as White sees it; in White’s world, chefs’ jackets and casual coats are treated with the same interest and detail as diamond necklaces and tuxedos.
White’s career has garnered the artist a number of accolades, such as being named official artist of the Grammy Awards in 2007, a coveted spot that drew wide attention to his work. After a number of prestigious collaborations with organisations such as Warner Brothers and Coca Cola, Todd gained international attention in 2011 when he was awarded the Diana Princess of Wales Gold Medal. Far from resting on his laurels, however, White has continued to produce new series of works in the years that followed. Buying Todd White paintings or collecting his limited edition artworks has continued to attract collectors from around the world as White finds new characters and stories to share.
