How This Cat Got Famous Is Amazingly Awesome – You Have To See It!
The only thing we love more than great art and great cats is great cat art! We caught up with Svetlana Petrova, professional artist and owner of the internet’s most cultured feline: Zarathustra, to talk about her work at Fat Cat Art.
Zarathustra in Fat Cat Art
Zarathustra makes himself at home in this classic American painting.
Svetlana, how did Zarathustra enter your life?
Zarathustra is my mother’s cat; I adopted him after she died in 2008. I was so close to my mother, and I miss her so much. Zarathustra was and is a living memory of my mother. She asked me to take care of him, and so do I, as far as I can.
The secret of Mona Lisa’s smile revealed…Zarathustra!
What about Zarathustra inspired you to feature him in your work?
I am professional artist, and made a lot of different projects, one was bizarre fashion show I toured it years ago in Europe, and I had a cat model in it, Marc the cat, toured with me:
“I was used to working with cats”
After my mother’s death I fell into a hard depression, and was unable to make something creative for about 2 years. And it was Zarathustra who saved me from this depression. A friend told me: “you did such a nice art with your cat Marc, why don’t you try art with your new cat Zarathustra, he is so funny!” And he was: he was fat, my mother spoiled him immensely.
Weight: 10 kilograms of pure undisturbed joy
[taboolamiddle]
Rembrandt, Danae.
Karel Dujardin, Boy Blowing Soap Bubbles and Cat hunting them
I made 4 classic paintings, and I sent it to some friends of mine, artists and gallerists, just to see their reaction. Never before I saw serious ladies laughing to tears and laying down from laughing so hard.
This encouraged me a lot, and I launched the site FatCatArt.com
“I dreamt of making an experiment: to create an Internet meme that would be beautiful and clever, this virus should bring some information, some stimulus to know more. People discovering my cat paintings should google the originals. “
Zarathustra enjoys the perks of internet stardom.
After all the attention he’s gotten has fame gone to Zarathustra’s head?
This face says: I don’t do autographs.
“Fame has good and bad sides. Good is that he now has the best veterinary service and a lot of free medical care, all vet doctors in the city are his fans. Bad is that everybody wants to touch him, sometimes there’s just too many people. He doesn’t like journalists who speak in a loud voice, though generally he likes the camera’s attention, and can hold a good press conference.”
“He does hate his diet though (because he is fat he is on strict diet), and he looks at me as if saying: “I am a star, I am not just a cat, I am working hard, why I don’t get as many king prawns as I want?” I have no reply at this very clever question!”
Can you tell us about a time when Zarathustra really surprised you?
He surprises me rather often.
He is very artistic and is a great mimic. Look at how Zarathustra re-enacts Gloria Swenson in Sunset Boulevard,
Zarathustra has been all over from Masterpieces to Still Life and even Meowvies, what’s next for Fat Cat Art?
A book will be coming out from Penguin Random House USA in September. It has more than 150 images, some of them never seen before, and about 20 000 words of hilarious text in English, I am reading galley proofs now, it looks beautiful! And on the cover of the book, the authorship is marked as Svetlana Petrova & Zarathustra the Cat. I think he is the first cat book author.
Zarathustra’s adoring fans gather.
Please no touching the art!
The spoils of an art cat.
Zarathustra sees publishing in his future…
Where can we go for more Zarathustra?
His official site where all new Zarathustra’s art works appear.
It is possible to have them IRL, we have online shop with prints and posters.
We ship them throughout the whole world, we’ve already sent prints to the USA, UK, Canada, Germany, France, Austria, Italy, Switzerland, Sweden, Denmark, South Korea, Singapore, Japan, Thailand, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Israel..
Soon Zarathustra will take part in Affordable Art Fair Singapore 17 to 19 April 2015 with a collection of limited edition prints.
Zarathustra has his official Facebook page. Youtube channel where one can see not only his videos but also a collection of the most artful cat videos from the net and an Instagram account.
Thanks so much Svetlana for sharing your adorable cat and educating us on fine art!
