tapestry, wool mix (glow in the dark, acrylic, mohair), 2023.
Pet-Woman
Hello Kitty is a globally recognized symbol of Japanese kawaii culture. It’s a highly stylized depiction of an anthropomorphized white cat with a characteristic pink bow above her left ear and no mouth. It combines the figures of a child, an animal, and a woman. This fusion creates an image of infantile, domesticated, and unthreatening femininity. As both a child and an animal, she occupies a liminal position—suspended between the categories of nature and culture—a position that patriarchy demands to discipline and control.
At the same time, Hello Kitty echoes enduring stereotypes of Asian women, embodying the kawaii traits of innocence, sweetness, and submissiveness. Outside of Asia, this stereotyping can feel even more pronounced as a form of exoticization, resonating with the personal experiences of the author—an Asian woman living in Austria. Although the artist herself is Mongolian, she must confront a simplified vision of Asia, shaped by the continent’s most globally successful pop culture—Japan’s manga and anime—and the clichés that have been exported along with it.
Beast-Goddess
In the hands of the artist, the once-innocent mascot undergoes a monstrous metamorphosis: multiple clawed limbs sprout from her body, and a row of sharp teeth appears. Her multiplied arms and legs spread wide, revealing the figure of an adult woman—breasts and a vulva from which a red braid hangs—while long red boots complete the transformation. Between the two left arms, a shark-like jaw emerges, framing the title of the work: 2 cute 4 u.
The blue, multiple arms resemble Kali, the Hindu goddess of creation and dissolution, as well as the destruction of ego and transformation. It can also be interpreted as Lhamo Tröma—a wrathful female deity in Tibetan Buddhism, also venerated in Mongolia, the artist’s homeland. Like Kali, Lhamo Tröma embodies radical liberation: confronting attachment, shattering the ego, and dissolving boundaries. It isn’t a faithful depiction of any goddess, but rather an artistic assemblage of references, affects, and images, evoking Kali or Troma Nagmo without directly representing them.
Pet-Woman vs Beast-Goddess
In this work, two models collide: the capitalist production of individuals as predictable consumers versus the radical dissolution of ego and conventional identity, experienced through an excess of affect—surrendering oneself completely to pleasure, fury, and sensation.
The transformation into a wilder, more chaotic form carries a clear emancipatory character, calling for the embrace of the full spectrum of women’s affects—both sexuality and aggression, so often denied and repressed.
Politics of Female Affect
From the perspective of affect theory, the contrast between Hello Kitty and the beast-goddess becomes particularly vivid. Hello Kitty represents flattened, domesticated affect—desire and anger restrained into safe “cuteness.” The metaphor of the “pet” tells how female energy is tamed, pacified, and redirected into non-threatening forms. In this sense, the work resonates with Sarah Ahmed’s insight that social norms suppress emotions and desires—especially those related to gender and sexuality—to maintain the status quo. Affect that exceeds expected norms is deemed as “excess” and flattened into more acceptable forms.
From Pet to Threat
When Hello Kitty becomes wild and shameless, the image loses its comforting mascot appeal. By reclaiming her sexuality and aggression, she also regains agency. The title itself signals excess and overflow — “too cute for you,” being too much and directly challenging the viewer. It can thus be read both as a critique of stereotypes surrounding Asian femininity and as a fantasy of reclaimed power, one that escapes the logic of domestication.
Michał Rutz