Art Metropole / Bed of Nails: Jeremy Laing

Events > Publishing

26 May 2007

Bed of Nails: Jeremy Laing

Artist: Jeremy Laing

Art Metropole is super excited to announce our new our FWD edition by celebrated artist and fashion designer Jeremy Laing. For his edition Laing has employed digital jacquard weaving technology to produce the image/object titled “Bed of Nails,” a colourful collage of enlarged acrylic fingernails. As a fashionable accessory, acrylic nails, simultaneously tacky & beautiful, also generate a hard extension of the hands naturally sensitive and soft touch. Captivated by these formal juxtapositions, Laing develops the contradictions further through the edition itself – creating an object with a dual nature, suitable as both a fine art hanging or a utilitarian throw.
“Bed of Nails” is the third in an on-going series of pieces involving acrylic finger nails. The first, a pinata filled with handfuls of acrylic nails and strung up with a net of hand-knotted hair weave, was exhibited at “Pinata Party”, a group show at Gavin Brown’s Enterprise, in New York. The second, titled “Press-On: Extensions for Daily Perseverance”, a prototype for an edition of solid gold nails nested on a bed of hair and found shoulder pads, was exhibited at Barr Gilmore’s Solo Exhibition and subsequently at Art Metropole.

Please join us at Art Metropole on the afternoon of Saturday May 26th, 2007 to launch this edition. Jeremy Laing will be present.

About the Artist

Jeremy Laing is one of Canada’s leading young designers, and is gaining international recognition for his cerebral and organic approach to garment construction as well as his crossover art world collaborations. Laing first picked up needle and thread at age 13, having watched his mother sew, and has been making clothes ever since. His self-taught method was honed while studying in Toronto, on exchange at Westminster University in London, and through an apprenticeship with Alexander McQueen. Following his apprenticeship, Laing worked freelance developing showpieces for five of McQueen’s collections, demonstrating his strength in innovative pattern making, garment construction, and the use of textile to create form. In Laing’s view, garments are a sum of parts, all functioning in relation to one another and, ultimately, to the body. His collections often stem from his elaborations on simple principles of construction and form, drawing simultaneously from couture and tailoring traditions.

Previous art projects include the Virginia Puff-Paint series of installations, performances and videos, in collaboration with Will Munro, that screened at the 2004 Liverpool Biennial, is included in the 2007 International Short Film Festival Oberhausen, and is the subject of a recent artists’ book, published by the Art Gallery of York University.

Laing was a co-founder and organizer of the Westside Stitches Couture Club, an informal performance-based sewing circle that, among other events, hosted a T-shirt relay at Art Metropole, as part of the School of Serial Production.

His work has been featured in Canadian Art, The New York Times, Another Magazine, Azure’s Design Lines, V Magazine, Soma, Tokion, Dazed & Confused and is the subject of upcoming features in Descant, Vogue and I.D.

Laing currently lives and works in Parkdale, Toronto. For more information about this artist please visit www.jeremylaing.com

Jeremy Laing would like to thank Roses Nails & Spa (1118 Queen Street West, Toronto)

Canadian-born Jeremy Laing spent his childhood on an army base in Germany. He learned to sew at age 13 by watching his mother, and has been making clothes ever since.

Jeremy’s self-taught method, which combines organic and geometric approaches to pattern making and construction, was honed while studying in Toronto, on exchange at Westminster University in London, and through an apprenticeship with Alexander McQueen. Following his apprenticeship, Jeremy worked freelance developing showpieces for five of McQueen’s collections, demonstrating his strength in innovative pattern making, garment construction, and the use of textile to create form. In 2011, Jeremy was a finalist for the prestigious ANDAM Fashion Award.

In Jeremy’s view, garments are a sum of parts, all functioning in relation to one another and, ultimately, to the body. His collections often stem from his elaborations on simple principles of construction and form, drawing simultaneously from couture and tailoring traditions.

Jeremy currently lives and works in Toronto, Canada.

Image

FWD Edition: Jeremy Laing.