Addyson Bonner (b. 2003) is a French American artist who makes figurative soft sculptures and wearables.

As an artist with a background in illustration (particularly digital illustrations in online furry spaces) Bonner uses his knowledge in character design to create identifiable recurring characters and display through them his experiences with anxiety, autism and being an odd child growing up into an odd adult.

Bonner’s characters are either given three dimensional presence through felt-skinned and foam stuffed bodies or two dimensional presence through printing on wearables like recurring mascots.

Their designs are inspired by childhood characters or early internet imagery he encountered as a child, and work as self portraits. But in doing so Bonner encapsulates the experiences of others who chased after characters to understand themselves and their identities better.

Bonner explores how we react to characters, especially characters that we can identify and empathize with. He is currently working with bright red and lime green ridiculous characters for their ability to be both approachable and unapproachable, nurturing their sense of unease with agresive color schemes.

Bonner is also interested in red and green as emotive colors, with red being attributed in western color theory with feelings like love, anger and embarrassment and green being taken as jealousy, sickness and fear.

By making his characters ridiculous in their overexpression of their color's emotions, Bonner hopes to underline how much meaning we project onto them.

Bonner explores soft sculptures for their ability to easily gain empathy and give life to a body. His body of work seeks to connect with its audience like a mirror, reflecting everyday little anxieties and joys by making his characters experience them. Bonner’s sculptures also offer to share: they experience the moment with their audience, sometimes acknowledging us by facing us widely grinning, sometimes not and still experiencing tenderness they are comfortable sharing in the open. They aren’t afraid to show their emotions to others, and neither should you.

Bonner believes in bringing neurodivergent art to the forefront of fine art and recognizing it for the incredibly diverse presence it already has in the world of painting, sculptures and fiber arts; his art is fully informed by neurodivergent experiences he and those around him have had, and what being neurodivergent and growing up in a neurotypical world is like.

Addyson Bonner is currently studying for a BFA at the School of Art Institute of Chicago with focus on Fiber and Fashion. He has participated in group shows at Mana Contemporary and SAIC galleries. He is looking to participate in many more group shows in Chicago and in the Midwest and is always open to open call opportunities.