‘The Topiary Cat’ Memorializes Surrealist Artist’s Beloved Pet

Have you read of topiary? It’s the horticultural art of sculpting trees and shrubs into outlined designs. Inspired by the technique, 75-12 months-previous British artist Richard Saunders began his sequence, The Topiary Cat, which will involve digitally reworking foliage into felines. The ongoing collection is motivated by his own cat, Tolly, who regrettably handed absent 5 many years back. Nevertheless, his feline friend has been supplied a new lease on lifetime as a result of a fictional character. The artist describes The Topiary Cat as “a magical creature with excellent powers who is much more smart than the mere mortals who behold him.”

Saunders has been a surrealist painter since he was a teenager, but he discovered to use Photoshop over two decades in the past when he labored as an advertising and marketing innovative director and artwork director. Merging his surrealist ideas with his personal computer capabilities, the thought of developing The Topiary Cat collection was born about 8 a long time ago, even though Tolly was even now alive.

“Initially these were done by me just for fun,” Saunders tells My Modern-day Satisfied. “I experienced taken a photograph, in the grounds of a historic residence, of a massive cloud topiary, and it happened to me that I could quite very easily photograph Tolly in a posture to match the shape of the bushes.” Saunders shared his 1st image on Flickr, but it was reposted all around the website without a credit score to the artist. It was not until another person at the BBC came across it and wrote a story on Saunders’ collection that he finally got recognition for his get the job done. A single of his illustrations or photos went viral on Fb, and people today believed it to be a true topiary. Saunders remembers, “One of the pictures, of The Topiary Cat consuming from a lake at Painshill Park, experienced over 3 million hits on my Fb website page, and the Topiary Cat internet site crashed due to the gigabytes of hits.”

Tolly died in 2016, but he life on by Saunders’ art. Around time, Saunders’ photographs have turn out to be extra elaborate, and some choose days to produce. The artist starts off with a photo he takes himself, and then digitally edits in The Topiary Cat to create his fantastical scenes. The surreal collection is not just amazing to glance at, though—it has a fun narrative. “The Topiary Cat’s character is smart and brave, as was Tolly, and he doesn’t realize human mortals,” clarifies Saunders. “Being immortal himself, he has no concept of time, or these odd human preoccupations these kinds of as ‘working,’ ‘school,’ ‘weekends,’ or ‘telephones.’”

From snoozing on prime of bridges to drinking from a lake, The Topiary Cat treats the countryside and stately houses as his have, own territory. However, once in a while, he’s pictured with some buddies. “He is now accompanied by an additional Russian Blue identified as ‘Georgi’ who is now approximately four years old,” clarifies Saunders. “His change moi in the visuals is fairly misbehaved and is identified as ‘G’ (Georgi Kitten) by his topiary mentor.”

Saunders is soon to release a quick fantasy novel dependent on The Topiary Cat’s adventures, simply just and aptly titled The Topiary Cat. Right until then, scroll down to check out out his surreal images and find far more on Fb.

Artist Richard Saunders digitally transforms foliage into felines in his series, The Topiary Cat.

The ongoing collection is motivated by his possess cat, Tolly, who regrettably handed absent five a long time back.

His feline mate is now immortalized by way of his art.

Saunders is a painter, but he realized how to use Photoshop just about two decades in the past.

He started off the collection just for fun, but his illustrations or photos shortly went viral, and some persons even considered them to be true topiary.

Now, Saunders results in countless surreal photographs that seize the enchanting adventures of The Topiary Cat.

The Topiary Cat: Web-site | Facebook | Instagram | YouTube

My Modern-day Met granted authorization to element photos by Richard Saunders / The Topiary Cat.

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