Amanda Magnetta-Ottati recalls having "cute attacks" as a kid. "It's like a spaz attack, when you would see something that was really cute, like a baby chick or whatever, and you'd be like, 'Oh my God, it's so cute!'" says the 31-year-old owner of Bear and Bird Gallery and Boutique in Lauderhill.

But when she pitched an idea for a show based on this idea to South Florida artists, the response was not what she expected. "It could be something so cute that you just can't take it," she says, "or cute literally attacking, like the cute-and-evil kind of thing." The resulting exhibition, Cute Attack, will open Saturday at Bear and Bird.

For his contrib ution to the show, artist Johnny Winslow re-created the Battle of Gettysburg using sock monkeys and teddy bears in place of soldiers. "I guess when people think of artwork, they think art is just about beautiful things," he says, "like if you do a picture of a woman, it's always beautiful, or you do flowers and they're always perfect. … You see something beautiful and you're pleased, but you see something grotesque and you get the feeling of disgust. But put the two things together and it makes it visually interesting and appealing."

Miami artist Terribly Odd agrees. "I think, in all honesty, that everybody appreciates c ute things," he says, "b ut by making it somehow vicious, you're almost making it acceptable for a broader audience to say, 'Yeah, this is cool.' Most guys wouldn't want to be caught dead in a shirt with a bear on it b ut you put a gun in its hand, and all of a sudden, it's really cool."

Magnetta-Ottati credits in part Japanese artists such as Junko Mizuno for this anti-cute trend, which has spawned subgenres such as c ute-creepy, c ute-evil, c ute-gross and c ute-angry. Terribly Odd describes his Cute Attack contribution as "a little, bitty, angry, little robot" that is the offspring of an earlier painting titled "Mr. Fister." The artist, who has a reputation for c ute-evil art, says the genre has been building for some time. "Have you ever heard of Gloomy Bear?" he asks. "I think one of the first really graphically violent but c ute images I can think of, and again it comes from Japanese culture, is pretty much just this cute pink bear."

In Gloomy Bear, a series of animated shorts by illustrator Mori Chak, a bear has been taken home by a boy named Pity. The boy attempts to c uddle his new pet but instead gets mauled and attacked because the bear, after all, is a wild animal.

Terribly Odd says graffiti artists took the cute-yet-disturbing genre to new levels in the United States.

"I think that's always been prevalent to street art," he argues, "taking that innocence, that cuteness and degrading it, where all of a sudden, you've defiled the ima gery of it."

Recently, he says, the scene's focus shifted from defiling icons such as Hello Kitty to creating adorable yet vicious characters. "There's a lot of fun with it, because you try to create something that you can't help b ut be drawn to even though you think you kind of shouldn't," he says. "I think that's also the appeal — that you've got this sweet little thing, and it almost makes the violence of the character acceptable just because of the fact that it's this c ute little thing. You almost forgive it for being vicious."

But not all the art in Cute Attack has an evil side. Miami artist Bianca "Bee" Bandera paints characters that are c ute and sad yet comforting. When the New World School of the Arts student wasn't working on photography installations last year, she started doodling doll-like images in her notebook. "A lot of people liked them, so I started doing paintings," she recalls. "It's almost like my relaxing art. I do them in my room when I have downtime, so I have fun with them."

The paintings express things Bandera is going through. "Typically, they tend to be a little sad-faced and cute," she says. "Whatever I think about, I draw, and I like drawing them in little packs, little support groups. They're like little sisters almost."

In her drawings, Bandera has a knack for putting two heads on one body or placing a character in a teacup. "Tea is so comforting, and I picture them coming out of things that I enjoy," she explains. "I remember climbing trees when I was little, and I associate trees with peace, so I'll do trees coming out from inside of them. It's very liberating, and even though it's not a very serious form of art for me, it's the best part because it's where I can just have fun and let go."

Winslow also incorporates childhood memories into his art. For "The Battle of Teddysburg," he shot photos of teddy bears including ones belonging to Magnetta-Ottati and Winslow's girlfriend, Sarah Pierce, whose Polaroid quilt of partying animals also will be in the show.

Magnetta-Ottati says C te Attack should appeal to everyone. "It's going to have some of the creepy-cute, and then it's not so girly," she says. "I think that cute, like cute-cute, is traditionally girly. It's not manly for a guy to, like, really spaz out about how cute a kitten is, even though he can recognize that."

Cute Attack will open 7-10 p.m. Saturday and run through April 26 at Bear and Bird Boutique and Gallery at Tate's Comics, 4566 N. University Drive, in Lauderhill. Call 954/ 748-0181 or visit Bearandbird.com. Contact Colleen Dougher at cdougher@citylinkmagazine.com.