British Contemporary artist Lucas Price has partnered with the nation’s favourite workwear brand to release a series of larger than life, classically styled paintings. Combining art historical references and gruff, modern material textures, Price re-presents the subject matter in a continuation of his blended practice. We ran a brief Q&A with him last week on the day of the release.
Moniker Projects:
Can you tell us a little about the show and how it came about?
Lucas Price:
It’s not so much a show, yet. There will be a show. Carhartt invited me to make a series of paintings featuring their AW21 collection, which will form the basis of their Autumn/Winter international campaign.
MP:
Is this the first time you’ve collaborated with the brand?
LP:
I’ve worked with them since last year. During lockdown a friend started a fund raising raising project called “Clothes for Progress”. I approached Carhartt to donate some clothes that I could customise, and things grew from there.
MP:
Tell us a little about this body of work.
LP:
hey reference Neo-Classical paintings formally, but include more up to date surfaces. I drew inspiration from the French (Neoclassical) painter Jacques Louis Davide.
MP:
For this campaign you produced a number of large paintings – is the scale of the work important to the subject matter?
LP:
I’m not so sure scale is so important, but for the purposes of the campaign, I wanted for them to be larger than human scale so they could be shot in a gallery environment.
The campaign photography shows Luc’s works in transit and unhung, re-aligning the paintings with the ‘work’ that goes into any install or shipment. The rich textures and warm colours absolutely serve their purpose, depicting the new season’s rollout through Price’s photorealism in a more than flattering light.
Watch this space for more on Price’s upcoming projects as he moves from material forms to digital, decentralised ones…