Absolutly Fabulous

Following in the footsteps of Damien Hirst, Andy Warhol and Spike Jonze, 18 artists have designed bottles for Absolut vodka, given only a huge blank bottle-shaped canvas as a brief.

A wide range of artistic backgrounds are represented, including collage, graphic design, drawing, painting, sculpture, print making, digital art, and murals.

Design duo Good Wives & Warriors (Becky Bolton and Louis Chappell to their mums) have taken their mural-based practice and created a highly intricate, vibrant design.

The pair says that their work shows a subtle nod to their Absolut-adorning pop-art predecessors Warhol and Haring, creating a painting that was ‘both fun and “pop” in colour and content’.

They add, ‘We are quite used to working on walls so don’t usually have the physical boundaries of a canvas.’ 

David Bray’s approach is a far more pared down affair, depicting a severe-looking woman’s face in monochrome. A somewhat diverse range of influences, including Pre-Raphaelites and 1960’s artists Allen Jones and Eric Stanton, inspire Bray’s work.

However, he wilfully chose to ignore the past for his design. ‘I think I would have scared myself silly given the sheer quality and number of high profile art legends who have worked in collaboration with Absolut’, he says.

He adds, ‘I wanted the drawing to interact with the unique Absolut bottle shape, for the images to fit into the bottle rather than just ignore the reason for the canvas to be supplied as it was.

‘So with the portrait piece, the hair squeezes into the neck of the bottle; the figures stand in the canvas as if it were a real bottle. The main starting point was a ship in a bottle, and I played round with different versions of fitting figures into the shape before settling on the final pieces.’

Like Good Wives & Warriors’ piece, Dave Kinsey’s bottle is also a very bright affair, showcasing his painterly approach and background in graffiti. The layered effect makes for a hugely dynamic look.

‘I get really excited seeing a freshly whitewashed canvas, looking into the unknown and not entirely knowing what the outcome will be’, says Kinsey. ‘It gets my creative juices going. It’s the equivalent of taking a trip with no destination in mind.’

For more information see the Absolut Facebook page

Here’s the behind the scenes trailer for the project:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cUrGXZKVNGo