Armando Veve is an artist recognized for his incredibly detailed illustrations of imaginative and surrealistic scenes. The beautiful and the absurd blend into uncanny depictions of wondrous worlds that fuse everything from flora and machinery to sea creatures and contemporary technology. Veve’s diagrammatic compositions offer a journey full of juxtapositions and discoveries that delight and disquiet in equal measure.
Veve’s Millions of Cats takes inspiration from the celebrated children’s book of the same name, written and illustrated by Wanda Gág, published in 1928 and widely recognized as the first modern picture book. For Veve’s monumental tapestry, he references the preposterous part of the story when the millions of cats fight to the death over which is the prettiest. The artist depicts his cats in a violent, vivid reverie that references Rodin’s Gates of Hell and Picasso’s Guernica. Veve’s metamorphic cats—emoting greed, lust, disgust, gluttony, sadness, loneliness, and euphoria—jostle within a labyrinthine composition that illuminates the creation and destruction that shape our lives.
Transformed into yardage with the FWM Studio team, Veve’s Millions of Cats is printed in red, yellow, and black to reference the original colors of Gág’s classic children’s book. Veve invites the viewer to get lost in his expansive four-way pattern that tells the story anew. The grand tapestry is made complete with custom-made feline finials, making sure, as with all Veve’s work, that no detail is overlooked.
