Gary Card 'Gathering Dust' Plaster Takeover London


In a world that prizes order, Gary Card embraces mess with open arms. The British artist is the most recent title to take over Plaster Journal’s London HQ, reworking the two-floor retail area right into a surreal sculptural fever dream. The junk shop-cum-exhibition brings life to Card’s internal world and unrealized initiatives, rendered via his acclaimed model of grotesque attraction, unapologetic extra and theatrical fantasy. “It’s chaos,” he informed Hypeart. “That’s why I prefer it.”

Titled Gathering Mud, the exhibition is a love letter to ’90s London, in all of its eccentricities and oddball arcades. The artist recollects his arrival within the metropolis and the “dilapidated, chockablocks filled with stuff” that after dominated Camden — storefronts overflowing with area of interest splendors of each selection: MAD comics, classic Japanese toys, intercourse paraphernalia.“That is reminiscent of these hectic areas that I used to like, the concept of simply surrounding your self with all of your favourite stuff. You’d simply get misplaced in it totally.”

It’s a spirit that spills onto the bottom flooring set up, one thing Card describes as “wall-to-wall claustrophobic enjoyable.” Private ephemera, artifacts collectibles pulled from his decades-long profession as an artist and set designer envelope the whole thing of the area, with no inch left empty. “Think about this heightened model of me inhabiting the area, hanging out and making unusual stuff,” he explains, drawing parallels between the immersive set up and a fantasy workshop. Peppered amongst the hoards of masks, work, collectible figurines and books are Card’s “Trinkets,” an ongoing sequence of object-portraits, proven for the primary time.

Gears shift upstairs right into a extra conventional artwork present, as Card debuts a brand new sequence of busts. Sculpted in his signature masking-tape technique, a method he’s been perfecting since he was 12-years outdated, the resin-dipped rainbow of characters deliver us additional into the depths of Card’s psychedelic universe. Unsettling and humorous directly, these figures revel within the cross-sections of cute, darkish and surreal, with teeth-baring grins that pull you in and maintain you tight.

“I like folks and faces — all my private art work is figurative. My set profession is about making issues round folks and my artwork surrounds folks themselves. They praise one another in that regard.” For Card, whose credit as a set designer embrace the likes of JW Anderson, Jean Paul Gaultier, Woman Gaga and FKA Twigs, Gathering Mud builds on a long-held need to marry his two artistic careers. “It simply feels proper and is sensible for me to herald a few of these immersive, enveloping worlds into my artwork.”

Along with the artist’s personal contributions, the present stays true to its retail-inspired roots, that includes a bunch of prints, zines, clothes and items by classic collective Unified Items, Breakdown Press and artists 4FSB (Jamie Bull), Danny Taylor and Ferry Gouw on the market.

Greater than an exhibition, Gathering Mud stands as a maximalist, lived-in tribute to reminiscence, identification and the sheer pleasure of surrendering your self to the chaos. The takeover marks the primary installment of an ongoing curatorial sequence from the London-based publication, inviting artists to reimagine its Soho storefront of their distinctive artistic visions.

Since opening the shop earlier this 12 months, Plaster founders Milo Astaire and Finn Constantine have envisioned the area as a platform “the place artists can do what they do greatest: make it really feel alive and ever-changing,” they famous. “Gary has accomplished simply that and a few. He has created a world you received’t wish to depart. An area that you may be misplaced in for days.”

Gathering Mud is now on view in London via August 9.

Plaster Retailer
20 Nice Chapel St,
London W1F 8FW,
United Kingdom