Local artist creates found art from childhood fascination
Local animator Sumit Prasad started painting on Pokémon cards on a whim. A natural artist, he imagined the world inside the rectangular image of a Pokémon card and decided to expand it. His painting extends the window to fill the entire space, creating card-sized works of art. Little did he know, other artists on social media were doing the same. Prasad then started sharing his work on Instagram, turning the hobby into a small business, and allowing him to connect with other enthusiasts.
Prasad immigrated to Canada as a five-year-old. As a young immigrant, he had a hard time adapting to his new environment because of the language barrier. Hence, he turned to art as a mode of communication. “As I grew up, I really loved art because I found it an easy way to connect with people. You could just draw something and somebody else would understand it without me having to struggle to find the words in English,” says Prasad.
This led Prasad to pursue artistry as a career, becoming an animator. After a couple years in the profession, he found that there was little room for creativity and self-expression. Prasad says that animation involves adhering to a rigid storyboard. His Pokémon painting hobby stemmed from a desire to begin drawing for leisure again.
For Prasad, his fascination with Pokémon started as a young boy. He recalls how he cherished the two packs of Pokémon cards he received for his birthday from his parents as a child.
“I remember being a little kid and being like, they’re my pets. So, I’d lay them all out and I’d feed them goldfish crackers. I remember doing that for like, a month. And it’s like when I talk to people about the Pokémon cards, everybody has stories like that.” – Sumit Prasad, owner of Sucoco Studio
To Prasad, the magic of Pokémon is in the childhood memories and the nostalgia he and others in the community hold.
Pokémon cards are also a lucrative business. Some cards possess certain features that can increase the value of the card astronomically. The most expensive card currently is the Pikachu Illustrator, which was sold in 2022 for the equivalent of $7.1 million Canadian dollars to internet personality, Logan Paul. The sale broke the Guinness World Record for most expensive Pokémon card sold in a private auction.
Like other collectibles, the value of Pokémon cards depends on rarity and condition. Prasad is just one of many artists that are creating found art out of collectibles. A quick search yields dozens of results of artists altering collectibles in some form to create art. For collectors that highly value the prices ascribed to certain cards, what Prasad does may seem absurd.
Manager of Core Games and avid comic book collector, Paul Lau, believes altering collectables for art diminishes the value.
“Not something I would recommend. To me that’s kind of like debasing the comic. Like I’m a collector that likes to have his collection complete, like 100% not with pieces missing and things out of it, right?” – Paul Lau, comic book collector
Lau and Prasad represent different perspectives on the value collectables hold. Both echoed regret when retelling the story of how they lost their childhood collections. Lau emphasizes his childhood box of comics would be worth a lot of money today. Meanwhile, Prasad wishes he still had his original Pokémon cards because they were meaningful. In contrast to how some card traders view the value of their collection, to Prasad, a blemished card is more valuable because it holds the story of being loved and played with daily.
To hear more about this topic, listen to the Agree to Disagree podcast below.