ToyCyte: Toy Culture Collected

The Soreheads live in the gritty, unforgiving world of control freaks, parking tickets, price gouging, automated phone services, gas prices and recycled air. (To which I’d add people who don’t hold doors and telemarketers who disregard the Do Not Call list.) They are disgruntled and annoyed by the countless frustrations of life. Here’s the crew in brief:

• Heartboy is kind of emo. He likes mood stabilizers and hates you.
• Sad Girl plays Guitar Hero and is looking for happiness.
• Little Man is a germphobe who is tired of being pushed around.
• Baghead sits in the dark and listens to techno.
• Evil Cupcake is on a quest to fatten the masses.

Similar to what I recently wrote about Noferin’s Pecanpals, there’s archetypes at work here. Which Sorehead are you? (I’m not ashamed to say I may be Little Man.) You can find The Soreheads as original plush (starting at $56; $300+ for one of a kind), paintings on wood (starting at $850) and girlie apparel ($45) at the Soreheads Bigcartel Webshop.

The Soreheads were born out of Los Angeles-based artist Vanessa Matthews’ frustration with an unjust world. They made a recent appearance in Dissociate, an installation of paintings by Matthews and plush dolls in collaboration with Nancy Mancini.

Unfortunately, I missed the exhibit, but thankfully these days, there’s always a Flickr tour. It featured a selection of the 25 paintings and 140 plushes, and included photos of the 7-foot Heartboy, Heartboy filled with pills (see above), 4-foot evil cupcake and former model (and one-time Madonna and Angelina Jolie paramour) Jenny Shimizu.

Matthews encourages her audience to return to their native and untrained emotions through her painting and their translation into 3D plush forms. One can find their own lost perspective through confronting her subjects; although their hearts have been hardened, deep down they are all just looking for love. And if you’re looking for plush dolls, all 140 handmade Soreheads (that haven’t been sold yet) are available through the Soreheads website.