[BA FA 2018]
CHRIS SOAL The youngest artist chosen to participate in the international Dior Lady Art project
Twenty-six-year-old Alexander Chris Soal is the youngest artist to be chosen to participate in the international Dior Lady Art project. Now in its fifth year, the project is spear-headed by Dior’s creative director Maria Grazia-Chiuri, who hand-picked 10 artists to reinterpret the classic Lady Dior handbag. Although Soal’s work celebrates humble materials such as discarded bottle caps and toothpicks he says working on the Dior project was a great fit. “I think the beauty of the Lady Dior Art initiative is that the invited contemporary artists are allowed to bring their own visual vocabulary to the collaboration. It was a bit daunting working with an international fashion house with a 75year legacy, but I simply tried to look at my own work, trust my instincts, and bring what I could to the collaboration. I thought the contrast between the high-fashion luxury icon and the banal materials I utilise through much of my sculptural work was the perfect approach. The bags resulted in being rather humorous and ironic. I especially appreciated that they supported my desire to reinterpret the ‘O’ in the Lady Dior charm into a beer bottle top opener.” His interpretation of the bags combines lightheartedness as well as careful consideration of choice of materials. “When two members of their salon flew out from Paris in February 2020 to show me the range of samples created off the initial sketches we’d provided, I genuinely felt like 22 W I T S R E V I E W
I was transported to my childhood when I played with Lego. The possibilities of any gesture were limitless. I’m delighted that this free and playful gesture could be captured in the finished bags. Each bag has a limited edition of 100. The bent beer bottle tops speak formally to the cowrie shell, a pre-colonial form of currency which now adorns a high-end carrier of currency. The toothpicks are suggestive of fur pelts and bring these seamless objects into a more direct relationship with questions of ecology and sustainability.” At a time when the world seemed to slow down during the pandemic Soal has been quietly productive. “It’s been a very strange time. I’m incredibly grateful and fortunate to have been able to keep the studio running, to keep my assistants employed. It’s very difficult, but enormously important, for an artist to find the rhythm and pace of their own work. This period has really encouraged me to take the time that the work demands. It’s been a privilege to have time and space not only to work at my own pace, but also to give the work time to breathe before sending it out. I’ve found that much new work has been developed from observations of completed works which we’ve left hanging in the studio for extended periods of time.” He recently held a solo exhibition, “As Below So
