The Art of Gab Bois: A Reflection on Beauty and the Hyperreal Society

Gab Bois is a multidisciplinary artist, who practices sculpture, installation, design, and photography. She was born and based in Montreal.

Her work is particularly interesting in the surreal quality of everyday objects. Influenced by childhood experiences of playing pretend, she brings a distinct fantasy to her body of bizarre tableaux and whimsical props. Her unique visual language, informed by design, fashion, pop culture, and advertising approaches the mundane with a sharp sense of humor. As a true baby of the selfie era, self-representation is a recurring theme in Gab Bois’ work and incites a feeling of closeness and relatability in her audience. It is with this particular intimacy that she transports us to a world of her own in which cocktail dresses are made out of scrabble tiles and clam shells can double as pocket mirrors.

Her portfolio also extends beyond personal projects and Gab Bois has worked in collaboration with several international brands including Balenciaga (Paris), Nike (NYC), Jean-Paul Gaultier (Paris), Jacquemus (Paris), Marc Jacobs (NYC), and Mercedes-Benz for artistic content creation as well as a promotional content for both Balenciaga and Jacquemus.

Gab Bois’s childhood was spent crafting things from everyday objects and discarded materials. The same premise that informed her craft as a child still informs her art today, only with photography replacing the craft.

The inspiration for Bois’s art comes from everything from fashion, art, and youth culture to technology and the human anatomy, and any cross-overs in between. Her work feels at once familiar and strange—at first glance, you might mistake it for a fashion image, but on closer inspection, you realize that the dress is made from scrabble pieces or the bag from croissants.

Gab Bois artwork, through her own and her peers’ use of Instagram, is pushing the boundaries of photography into new and exciting places.

The fashion industry is a vast and ever-changing landscape. Its history is rich and its future is bright, largely thanks to artists like Gab Bois. Bois’s work blurs the lines between art and fashion photography, challenging what we believe these two terms should mean. Her work is playful, just as it is serious while remaining rooted in reality. Most of all, it’s fun! Her colorful series of self-portraits featuring her juxtaposed with objects from consumer culture is exciting, fresh, and contemporary.

We are most intrigued by Bois’s work because it is such a novel idea. Fashion, photography, both—these things have been around for ages and have remained unchanged in the time that they have been around. Bois’s work breaks boundaries and redefines these artistic mediums. She inspires us to challenge ourselves and think outside of the box when it comes to art.

It’s easy to see why Gab Bois has already done so well as a photographer, both online and off. Her imagery is beautifully shot, she has a clear sense of her style, and she has an intriguing story to tell. It’ll be exciting to see how her art develops over time.

Gab Bois

Website | Instagram

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