The Momentous Mind of Gab Bois
Illustration by Meghan Zhang
Meet Gab Bois, a visual artist born and based in Montreal. Gab has made a name for herself by creating artwork using abnormal materials for alternative functions; the type of art that makes you double-take and instinctively question, “Did she just use what I think she did?” At first glance, her artwork is playful and satirical, but upon further reflection, viewers can see how well-thought-out and cleverly constructed these pieces are.
Much of her work is derived from childhood and the things she loved doing as a kid. Gab stayed entertained by honing her creative skills: through her adoration for arts and crafts, building, and working with found objects, discarded materials, or everyday items around the house. Her childlike wonder influences her art today, which she now captures using photography. What she does now is an extension of what she loved to do when she was young, and subconscious references and visual representations of her childhood memories and imaginations exist constantly in her creations.
“I draw a lot of inspiration from objects, especially things that make you do a double-take. It could be an unexpected design detail, a surreal landscape, someone’s haircut, or even the way something moves. I love anything that challenges perception or feels slightly off in a way that makes you look twice.” - Gab Bois
The playfulness in her designs comes from these early imaginative obsessions. She often seeks inspiration throughout her house, grocery and hardware stores, Montreal’s distinct seasons, or other elements of her environment. Some of their projects take minutes, while others require days or weeks to assemble, but Gab and her team always ensure they are finished with a pristine, polished look to balance out their humorous side. With no technical training, her skills in photography and digital manipulation are self-taught through experimentation. Still, photography has been an effective medium to give her abstract ideas a space to exist.
Gab Bois’ unconventional artistic creations embody visual wit and a lifelong resistance to boredom. Her original images revise photography from a surrealist lens that blurs the line between reality and fantasy. Surrealism and conceptual imagery art challenge viewers to reflect on what’s real and what isn’t as it plays with vision and redefines the meaning of art itself. She is significant because she encourages spectators to look at everyday objects with fresh perspectives while personally practising creativity. Her passion for reworking diverse materials stems from staying in tune with her childlike curiosity and creativity that refuses to fade. Imagination often withers as we grow up. Expressing this side of herself freely and having fun while doing so trains her creative muscles to stay in touch with her inner child, and she encourages her audience to do the same.
Gab utilises mundane items in her creations to make her work relatable. A snippet of her smaller pieces has included skirts of pens and pencils, a receipt headband, a lasagna hairbow, a bed made of flowers, a couch of grass, and an outfit of tea bags. A larger pursuit that Gab has had in the works is her ready-to-wear capsule, Canapés, a food-focused personal project of wearable pieces. To launch the first line, she designed her Clementine heels using the actual fruit in their prototypes, and the finished product looks just as ripe. A recent high-profile project released in December was Gab Bois’s partnership with Back Market, a company that refurbishes and sells used tech. In this e-waste collection, she constructed six pieces: a camera turned into a wallet, a walkman made into a clutch, a flip phone transformed into a belt, wired earbuds weaved together into a head balaclava, security cameras stacked on top of one another to assemble a candlestick holder, and a nail set with bits of tech embedded. The project aimed to make a bold commentary on e-waste, and all proceeds from this collaboration went towards the Right to Repair movement. Although much of Bois’ designs appear whimsical and fun, a remarkable part of childhood wonder is the innocent hope that what we do will change the world. Gab proves she remains in tune with this as she daringly uses her art to make a difference that is true to herself.
Gab Bois’ pieces and collections are distinctively hers and have inspired me to see more creativity in normal objects. I recently drew inspiration from one of Gab’s works, her “mask dress,” and created a mask corset top of my own for a creative assignment in my sustainability course. A childhood hobby I adored growing up was sewing, which I also used to connect with my grandmother. Gab’s work influenced me to pull out the sewing machine my Beste gifted me a decade ago and make something playful and practical after not experimenting with big sewing projects for years. The act of threading the needle and pinning the panels of masks transported me back to my Beste’s sewing room. I could hear her laughter, her blowing strands of hair away from her face as she concentrated on the needle, and the whir of the machine as it pierced the heart-patterned fabric. While seated in the same position today, I could feel the admiration and eagerness to learn that radiated from my 10-year-old self sitting beside her. The spark of imagination I possessed as a kid became easier to disconnect from than I wanted to admit, but actively indulging in my childhood memories and imaginations established to me that Gab has been doing something right.
Taking ordinary objects away from their conventional setting builds an artistic playground that stirs onlookers to pause and take a second look before once again being compelled to resume scrolling. Each photo she produces is loud and has a distinct voice, an unapologetic one that speaks with childhood wonder in mind. The innovation of Gab Bois knows no bounds.
Gab Bois’ work can be found on her website https://www.gabbois.com/ and her Instagram handle @gabbois
All images sourced from https://www.gabbois.com/