Kat Vandal
French mixed-media artist based in London, Kat Vandal turns happy childhood memories into dopamine-filled art as a rebellion against gloom and adulthood.
Using pre-loved toys, balloons, teddies and ball-pit balls, she merges the art of upcycling with playfulness and emotional resonance in a visual language rooted in Neo-Pop culture.
“I’m a deeply nostalgic person, obsessed with the wonder, play and silliness of early childhood. Motherhood gave me a second doorway into that world, but I already feel the ache of that doorway closing and the fear to be trapped in an adult world where no one wants to play.
My practice is a way for me to keep playing and stay a child forever.
I create art with toys because they are physical symbols of childhood's smallest joys: not the headline memories, but the micro-moments that time tends to blur like cracking open a kinder egg, opening a birthday party bag, getting a souvenir from a day out.
Unlike an image, I believe a toy doesn’t just remind us of a memory; it brings back the feeling: The body recognises it before the mind does. That is why tactile elements sit at the heart of my work.”
My goal as an artist is to create an immediate reaction, a first smile, almost a dopamine rush and once the viewer has softened into that brighter place, the work can open into something deeper: a connection that invites them to dig into their own memories.”
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