BOYARDE MESSENGER: LUXURY POP ART & SCOPOPHILIA INSTAGRAM: @boyarde WESBITE: www.boyarde.com EMAIL: [email protected]
Artist Boyarde Messenger’s notorious POP ART can be found in all corners of the globe with collectors reaching London, Australia, The Royal Palaces of Jordan, Paris, New York Hong Kong and Belize. With widespread acclaim, she has featured in The Financial Times, Vogue Brasil, The Daily Mail, The Metro, Stylist Magazine, The Huffington Post, The Sunday Times Style Magazine, The Evening Standard, You Magazine, Harpers Bazaar Singapore, Turkish Marie Claire, L’Officiel Indonesia, The Independent, appearing on BBC Radio, BBC 3’s Russell Howard’s Good News and discussing the origins of her work for GMT BBC World News. Boyarde created an exclusive Pop Up exhibition with Benefit Cosmetics in Cork Street, London, recently collaborated with Kiehl’s and Selfridges, London and was commissioned to hand paint 100 pairs of shoes for the Charlotte Olympia and Neiman Marcus which featured in US Elle and French Vogue. Boyarde describes her work as “highlighting…[her] playful personality, injecting it with humour and mischievousness, whilst liberating the object of desire, admiring its form, yet still confirming the vital balance between power and vulnerability.”
When focusing on her painterly work, Boyarde describes herself as ‘painting on everything but paper’. This came as a natural transition from using the female body as a canvas, to shoes and bags. Her Pop Art transcends the body to luxury fashion accessories, as her current projects continue to explore further her fascination with the female form and the nature of its power, engendered in the ‘pleasure of looking’: Scopophilia. This notion examines all gazes, from narcissism within the subject, to objectification by the viewer. Working in the Pop Idiom, Boyarde re-contextualizes familiar sub-conscious Scopophilic images of all types of art from The Pre-Raphaelites to Lichtenstein, to The Golden Age of Comics to icons of photography and cinema. In doing so she unravels the history of gender stereotype and by painting onto her canvas, be it the female body or a handbag, she transforms high art into low art, back into high art, by embracing the wonderful vulgar progress of kitsch. Boyarde also uses bright vibrant patterns on her female canvas with the intent of ‘bringing out the inner goddess’ through the shielding of paint.
BESPOKE COMMISSIONS
Boyarde creates bespoke artworks for her private clients in her signature Pop Art style, painting on a range of luxury fashion accessories, from Hermes to Goyard. BOYARDE’S POP ART CATALOGUE
Boyarde has recently launched her Catalogue of hand painted Pop Art. These set designs, named ‘Boyarde’s Badges’ and ‘Boyarde’s Alphabet’, cater for clients desiring smaller scale creations to her bespoke Art, combined with personalisation. Boyarde hand paints directly onto accessories, from bags, to passport holders, to jackets, taking monogramming to the next level.
Included in the Catalogue: Boyarde’s Alphabet is her artistic alternative to plain lettering and Boyarde’s Badges combine popular emblems with your initials.
Boyarde will hand paint the chosen design directly on to your fashion accessory. All accessories and surfaces are prepped and primed accordingly to ensure the longevity of the artwork.
EXAMPLE EVENTS
CHARLOTTE OLYMPIA AND NEIMAN MARCUS COLLABORATION FOR ART BASEL 2012
Boyarde hand painted 100 pairs of Charlotte Olympia shoes for Art Basel 2012. These hand painted designs were inspired by Twentieth Century Artists, including Vincent Van Gough, Jackson Pollock, Piet Mondrian, Roy Lichtenstein and Pablo Picasso.
KIEHLS UK COLLABORATION AT SELFRIDGES, LONDON AND MANCHESTER 2015
Boyarde collaborated with Kiehls UK for Selfridges, creating a signature Boyarde Pop Art Super hero Diva, exclusively for the launch of Kiehls new Daily Reviving Concentrate serum, empowering women and releasing the inner goddess. Her design was screen printed as a limited edition Tote bag only for Kiehls & Selfridges, Manchester and London customers.
EXHIBITION AT THE HYATT REGENCY HOTEL, LONDON FASHION WEEK 2015
Boyarde was recently the ‘Artist in Residence’ in the Montagu. The Hyatt hotel partners with both Frieze and the Saatchi. The bags were exhibited throughout London fashion week and Frieze London. Items were kindly leant from previous luxury brand collaborations and high profile individuals; these included Charlotte Olympia, Designer Exchange Knightsbridge, Liberty London, Smythson & Laura Bailey.
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LK BENNETT- SUMMER SPRING INSTAGRAM PREVIEW, THE MONDRIAN HOTEL, NOVEMBER 2015
In November 2015, Boyarde collaborated with LK Bennett, creating her signature pop art initials designs, which were hand painted on the LK Bennett Mariel bag. These bags given as gifts to some on the UK’s top fashion bloggers and brand ambassadors, at a brunch held at the Mondrian Hotel London, to promote their new Spring/Summer collection.
LIBERTY LONDON, NEW YORK FASHION WEEK PIECES, 2015
For New York fashion week 2015, Boyarde painted personalised designs for Liberty's managing director, Ed Burstell, and Liberty Womenswear buyer, Rhian Grimstead.
LIBERTY LONDON ,VIP CLIENT GIFTS, 2016
The VIP team at Liberty have asked Boyarde to hand paint a selection of Iphis pouches for twenty of Liberty’s VIP clients, who got the opportunity to meet Boyarde in person at the London store in December 2015.