Gary Card x JW Anderson x Topshop illustrations

Composite Show Experiment

 I have no idea what these are. I made them for a show called 'Composite' last year, these are the result of another "oh god I've committed to this project, now I have to somehow make it happen!" situation which I somehow find myself in ever more frequently. So what do you do the night before the show when you have no idea what you are going to make? eventually I settled on making evil super computers out of sheet lead.

 I wasn't entirely happy with the result at the time so I've played with them in Photoshop, just for fun. I really like how weird and degraded the solarised ones are, somehow a little eerie.

 This was how they were seen in the show.

Animal Totem Pole for 3939 shop, Hoxton.

This is hugely out of date but I never posted it at the time so I thought since its a bit cute it deserved a little post. My friends own a shop called 3939 in Hoxton and needed a Christmas window made for the festive period. The month before Christmas is horrible as its the busiest time of year for me and I remember I was incredibly stressed trying to get everything finished before the holidays, but they needed a window urgently and I just couldn't say no (it was Christmas after all) so I spent a night making these multi coloured christmassy critters.
 The shop has 3 mascots, a monkey, a fox and a bear,  I thought it would be fun to make them into a festive Totem pole of sorts, wearing and lifting up gift ideas. In the end, after I'd stopped sulking about all the other stuff  I had to get done and got on with it I had a great time making them, I wonder where they are now.

Lost Lady Gaga Head-piece

I've been lucky enough to make some great stuff for Lady Gaga over the last 4 of years or so, from back drops to costumes, its always tremendously exciting seeing something you've made on or around her in some way.

However embarking on such a project always comes with an element of danger. The gamble of making something for her means it may never be seen again and will probably be thrown in (what I've affectionately named) the 'Gagarchive'. This poor casualty was created for her Judas video a couple of years ago and was inspired by a 'Mary Magdalene meets Hells Angel' kind of thing.  

Plasticine Cave for Spring Studios

I made this installation for Spring Studios Gallery a few years ago, I stumbled on these pictures whilst flicking through the many unnamed files on my hard drive and thought it would be an interesting thing to revisit. 

As with a lot of my projects for initial idea is very immediate, 'How about a Plasticine cave!?' I'd never seen plasticine used in huge quantities before and thought it would be wonderful to make a claustrophobic structure out of the stuff. I remember I wanted to make an enviroment that made you feel a little strange and uneasy.

The installation consisted of 2 thousands gawking faces sculpted out of almost 3 tonnes of white plasticine. Heres a little review I found that describes the piece far more eloquently than I can - 'Gary Card creates a dramatic entrance to the exhibition via a huge cave-like environment constructed out of white Plasticine, the interior walls consisting of individual naive face formations, is reminiscent of the Sedlec Ossuary (Kostnice), in Kutna Hora * with a comical twist. Stark artificial lighting illuminates the interior in contrasts to the works’ malleable surface, creating an experience, which is both fantastical and edgy. Cards’ trademarks, his use of colour and texture, which employ an unbridled aesthetic that utilizes a combination of visual mediums and aesthetics, are some of the elements evident in this piece, which marks the beginning of a special series of unique custom made pieces for interior spaces.' 

One of the interesting, though not necessarily welcome surprises from the experience was the overwhelming smell of the plasticine, the massive quantity of the material meant the whole bottom floor of Spring studios reeked of the stuff, it had an unmistakable odour that seemed to trigger a sort of great noxious nostalgia in you, almost like being choked with your own childhood.

 I just wish I made more of a fuss telling people about it, at the time of its construction I was so involved in tirelessly sculpting the thousands of little faces that I neglected to invite anyone to come and see it. oh well, live and learn.

Bog Family

These guys were designed for an aborted project, I've grown quite attached to them so I thought I'd post them here. Hope you like them. x

COS Pop Up Store for Salone del Mobile Furniture Fair

COS are launching in Italy this July. To promote their impending arrival the guys at COS asked me to design and build them a pop up store in Milan to coincide with the prestigious Salone del Mobile furniture fair.

I felt like the pop up store should embody the COS ethos, simple yet witty design that doesn’t overpower or distract. This made me think of classic Swiss interior design and the idea of no unnecessary extras.  I thought about a perfect wooden box and how every part of that boxes material could be reconfigured and used, this became the design philosophy for the instillation. 

 I used Mondrian as a starting for this project and thought about how he divided his paintings into sections, I considered how I could transpose this idea into an environment design. This led me to the concept of the box and how it could be fragmented and fold into itself to create a display space. I loved the idea that every part the cube would be used to make every part of the display areas and railing systems, nothing would be wasted. From roof to wall to floor, all would be cut away and re-assembled into all necessary display components. The process of designing this became a kind of elaborate puzzle, as every part that I changed had a knock-on affect to the rest of the structure, ultimately leading to a thoroughly considered piece of design that sits somewhere between retail space, instillation and furniture.