When you think of cartoons, one of the first things that comes to mind are bright colors. Thai artist Haihaitoon likes to flip this idea, stripping all of the color from the bubbly and joyful characters so common in street art and and painting instead with grayscale only. It makes his artwork stand out from the pack of hyper-saturated colors so common these days. His characters are also drawn in the style of animation from the early 20th century, when the technology to create them was still new. But they party in abandoned skate pools, at restaurants, and in rented villas. They play with finger skateboards, smoke weed, and fuck in the bathtub.
Haihaitoon’s characters are generally not human, and he prefers to paint characters like slugs and flies. One of his recurring characters is an earthworm named Bug Hum who is regularly surrounded by his friends. These small creatures fascinate Haihaitoon (whose real name is Jakkrapan Thavornkulchai), and he enjoys making them larger than life for all his viewers to appreciate.
The style comes from a time when racism was blatant and there are many examples of offensive cartoons from those days. When JAY Z dropped his video for “The Story Of OJ,” the rapper took these cartoons on directly, repurposing anti-black stereotypes found in the animation of Disney, Warner Brothers, and Fleischer Studios to critique racism in contemporary America. But of course, racism continued to appear in later cartoons as well, including Asian stereotypes found in the likes of Lady and the Tramp and others from the mid-20th century. Haihaitoon says he’s read about this in the news but counts himself lucky to have never been exposed to it while watching animation himself.
Cartoons have been a major influence for Haihaitoon since he was a kid, but he used to focus on animation from the 80s and 90s. As he got older, he started to delve into the early black-and-white cartoons and found their ability to express emotions without color or sound powerful. He tries to do the same with his own work, evoking feelings with limited colors and a minimal style.
