Discovering Modern Art Through a MINIONS Coloring Book: Part I
I was gifted an innocuous item for our annual Boxing Day celebration way back in the year 2018. The friend who gifted me this item finds great enjoyment in finding the esoteric aesthetical value in objects that would otherwise be considered as disposable pop culture detritus, not merely as items spawned out by a culture that values empty and obsessive consumption above all else, but an opportunity to find meaning in even the most ordinary and childlike subjects for potential growth of our artistic capabilities.
Observe, the truest and most sincere icon of this particularly turbulent decade in this nation’s history: the unassuming and measly Minion.
Originally introduced in the 2010 animated feature Despicable Me, the Minions served as a collective Rosencrantz and Guildenstern to the machinations of Gru, the film’s tragic equivalent to Hamlet.
A perpetual Greek chorus almost inspired by the great plays of thousands of years earlier, they contrasted his scheming mind and great intellect with the consistent babble of nonsensical wording and onomatopoeias. They showed the true futility of his work, his desperation to be seen as a true scoundrel of the highest order, showing him that the emotional connections being offered to him by sheer providence were those that he deserved, and his own toxic and self-hating defense mechanisms needed to be put aside in order to properly care for three orphans put under his care.
Even this poster, for the third and potentially final entry within the numerical series, can show quite a bit of insight into the satirical way that these motion pictures give us great insight into the modern human condition, complete with Gru and his counterpart giving off poses that bring to mind the great spy films of the 1960s, the wish fulfillment in having a cinematic surrogate live out all the fantasies that you yourself would never get to experience.
Thus Gru serves as an inverse to the traditionally masculine fantasy of becoming a force to be reckoned with, his obvious genius and intellect being manipulated by forces outside of his control to end up shifting his good intentions to more villainous means, till he assumes gender roles outside the traditionally masculine norm to ultimately rediscover himself.
It was with this context that I would begin to approach the challenge my friend had unknowingly left for me this fine Boxing Day, to imbibe the essence of true abstract expression within an entity that seemed merely to exist purely to sell itself back to its own consumers in perpetuity. I would prove that capitalism was in itself a meaningful form of commerce by showing the ways in which its exports could have identifiable subtextual meaning within.
But let us get back to the first coloring, which has now finally been completed after a lot of thought and deliberation. In future installments, I shall update at every step of the way as opposed to right after it’s finished, but for the first time, our colors won’t be too abstract as of yet, to get the audience acclimated.
What an appropriate beginning to our expedition together through the world of abstract expressionism! The Minion ascending from the oceans like our evolutionary ancestors of old, making their first brave steps into a land yet unexplored by civilized societies! Their trademark goggles are woven of reeds and leaves, the lens created from a slab of volcanic glass, and the loincloth hiding their nether regions visually calling back the image of the biblical Adam and Eve hiding their nakedness with fig leaves when they first consumed the fruit of the tree of Knowledge and Good and Evil.
How do we as a people keep coming back to these symbols for creative reference, acknowledging the original sin of the Judeo-Christian religion? However, it must be noted how the pose and stance of the Minion does not even remotely match that of its saintly forebearers, as it stands, hands on hips, confident and proud of itself, its nudity only hidden as an aesthetic choice rather than as a source of shame in its own body.
Those familiar with pop culture will also recognize its stance as having previously belonged with another biblical archetype:
The Minion not only calls to biblical traditions, but also to the modern mythology of brave men and women granted powers beyond that of the ordinary masses and using them to enforce their will on all of those who are unlucky enough not to have the same abilities. Observe the difference between George Reeves’ portrayal, with a stoic expression and the subtle signifier of a quiet threat, versus the Minion’s largely excited and non-threatening grin, signifying to the audience a comfort in itself.
Though the lines are not of my own making, it is my job to decide the use of color schemes and palettes in order to bring to life the designs created by sweat shop workers being forced to work for far below minimum wage.
For their brave sacrifice, I shall bring color and life to their creations, to find meaning within the very lack of meaning itself.
You have seen the colors I have chosen, so to end things off for today, let’s get into why those particular colors, out of a twenty-four crayon set gifted to me by the same friend “for inspiration,” ended up becoming the final crayon strokes on a masterpiece of graphic art design.
We began, of course, with the color that shall form the centerpiece of this artistic experiment during our time together. It was a difficult choice between the primary color of yellow and its slightly darker and more mysterious counterpart, the ravishing and rambunctious goldenrod. Which of these two shades forms the essence of this Minion creature? For now, I chose the simpler of the two shades to bring clarity to the palette, but also so that it would immediately draw the eye upon looking upon the picture frame.
Yellow, as a color also associated with fire, can be seen as symbolic of a purification, both literally and spiritually, and it would make sense then that such an emotionally pure type of being such as the Minion would be colored almost entirely by such a character, signifying that there is no corruption within their internal organs (wherever they might be located), signifying to us the purity and cleansing of our essence we need in ourselves.
Ultimately, it became very fitting that the shade chosen to represent both the Minion’s titular goggles and their approximation of the biblical fig leaves that would become the first clothes to cover nakedness and sin would also be a color that brings to mind the idea of sickness. We are defined by our contradictions, an inherent fear and desire for reproduction, ordered at once to “be fruitful and multiply” and simultaneously shamed for it. To see the Minion’s skin in yellow superseding this color both signifies the limitations that this color brings to sentient life and also what must be done about it.
I decided to make my one and only blend of two colors for decorating the beach surrounding the Minion by combining two colors that, at first glance, seem diametrically opposed to each other. The first is this shade, based on the titular fruit known as the apricot. Contrasted with the brown that will make up the additional layer on top, it is the first of the more surreal elements that separates this rendition from what we recognize in reality, and also a way to distinguish this beach from the beaches we all see in our mind’s eye.
Brown brings to mind tree trunks more than any other image, new life sprouting from the ground. It brings to mind dirt, the bringer of nutrients to plant life, as well as twigs and rotting leaves. All in all, it is a signifier of the cycle of life and death that we see represented each year through the seasons, a process that we shall ultimately repeat ourselves over the course of our lives. To apply the color brown to sand in only a light layer over the apricot is to contrast it, but also to show the two dualities of a warmer shade of color versus a darker shade. Yin and yang, duality upon constant dualities.
This particular shade was used for the waves crashing up upon the sand of our beach, robin’s egg blue clashing with our apricot/brown sand.
A lighter shade than the pure mix of blue green that will make up the majority of our ocean, but lighter than the primary shades of blue that we typically see to allow for a subtle expression for the kinds of plant life that can be found hundreds of feet beneath the waves. This creates a gradient of color between two extremes.
Then we have the two ferns dotting either side of the beach, two symmetrical placements that could then be colored in with a more traditional form of green in order to show the concentration of new life growing out of the more complicated colors of the beach, where plant life ordinarily cannot grow.
Green has many meanings, due to its association with money, it can also be seen as the potential greed and avarice that lives within in our heart, but also the rebirth of new life, a common theme throughout the colors we have gotten to see in this tapestry so far.
An interesting choice provided to color in the storm clouds that also arrange themselves around the Minion in a symmetrical pattern. Not quite a grey, not quite a black and not quite a white either, a strange one in between, not easily defined or categorized. The color itself brings to mind the pelt of the eponymous canines that roam the forests, vicious but also protective of their young, perhaps signaling in a subtle way the parental tendencies the Minions often have in their roles as caretakers, both for each other and humans.
The final color can only be briefly seen in the image that has been so prominently displayed for the duration of our expedition into the unconscious human mind, but it is the pink starfish that can be seen on top of the beach, in between the Minion, the beach and the crashing waves.
This pink has several meanings. One, it is seen as a color most often associated with childhood and its memories, and over the course of time has shifted in between referring to little boys or girls, but always referring to the experience of childlike wonder and innocence in some capacity.
When referring back to pop culture, it is also a subtle nod to one of the flagship mascots of Universal’s main competitor:
This creates a contrast between the two corporate images we have now appropriated to express a deeper meaning, it reminds us of the futility of depending on anyone other than the greatest personhoods of all, with Universal appeal, a Paramount of creative riches, practically flowing down the Amazon river to land upon a Buena Vista at journey’s end.
Let us all think on that, think on how limiting it is to feel as though we have anything more to contribute to artistic discourse, that we have been superseded by a far greater and far more benevolent force, truly the replacements for humanity, and my limited human comprehension can only define so much, but perhaps exploring more, the boundary between the single human entity I am and the mass of humanity that makes up a corporate entity, perhaps I could be that too. Perhaps we all could be. I am made up of trillions of microscopic cells much like they are made up of billions of us, practically microscopic ourselves in their scope.
There is much to think about in the coming weeks and months together.
