Quentin - Royal with Cheese by Sara Kissing
Explore Mondoir Studio
Medium: Acrylic, 24-Karat Gold Leaf, Markers, Epoxy Resin
Dimensions: 36 x 48 in
Year: 2025
Price: $8900.00 USD
Status: available
Quentin Tarantino — “Royale with Cheese” Part of my Royal Treatment Collection, exhibited at Red Dot Miami in 2025, this original mixed-media painting celebrates Quentin Tarantino through the films, dialogue, humor and visual language that have made him one of the most recognizable filmmakers of his generation. The portrait places Tarantino quite literally in the “royal” role, surrounded by a dense collage of handwritten references, cinematic fragments and pop-culture details. At the heart of the painting is one of the most memorable exchanges from Pulp Fiction: “You know what they call a Quarter Pounder with Cheese in Paris?” — “A Royale with Cheese.” The famous dialogue becomes both the inspiration for the composition and the playful oversized ROYAL / CHEESE typography that dominates the work. Like the other works in my Royal Treatment Collection, the painting is designed to be explored up close. Layers of words, quotes and visual clues reveal more of Tarantino's creative world the longer you look, while the crown motif transforms a contemporary cultural icon into pop-art royalty. Bold yellow, turquoise, red, black and metallic accents create an energetic, almost cinematic surface, contrasting the expressive portrait at its center. The result is part portrait, part biography and part visual storytelling—a celebration of Tarantino's unmistakable voice and his influence on contemporary cinema and popular culture. The original artwork comes presented in a gallery-style gold frame, continuing the royal theme beyond the canvas and making the frame part of the overall presentation.
Why collect this work?
The split phrase “ROYAL” and “CHEESE” brackets the central portrait, converting a comic film quotation into a mock emblem of cultural authority.
- Kissing states that she builds portraits with subject-specific words and symbols. Here, that method makes authorship legible through remembered dialogue and titles rather than likeness alone.
- The catalogue identifies Quentin Tarantino as the sitter and links the title to Pulp Fiction. In the photograph, his frontal face and jeweled collar hold steady against overlapping names, questions, figures and marks.
- The documented acrylic and marker support shifts between modeled facial planes, block lettering and quick handwriting. Gold leaf and epoxy resin may introduce reflective contrast, though sheen and surface depth cannot be confirmed from the photograph.
- For an account of celebrity portraiture, the painting is a pointed example of how a public figure can be reconstructed from circulated phrases. Its humor also exposes the narrowness of reducing a filmmaker to quotable fragments.
About the Artist
Sara Kissing
Sara Kissing is an artist on Mondoir Studio. Artistic discipline: painting. Based in Naples, US.
Nationality: German
I create visual stories.
