How the hell did she think of that: Artist Gab Bois Ushers a New Wave of Dadaism

Using cardboard, clothing line pins and some kitchen rags, Gab Bois spent her childhood creating homes for those that didn’t have any– stray cats. “I made hotels for cats,” she recounts nonchalantly, as if it were like any other child’s arts and crafts project. She would save the ham from her school lunches, so that when she got home, she could cut the deli meat into little bits, putting the slimy slices on display for the cats, which they of course, likely gobbled up without any attention to the detail Bois put into the planning and the culinary presentation.

Bois has a superpower: she sees the potential in the mundane of everyday objects. Nowadays, though, she’s not making cat hotels out of kitchen items, but bras made of leaves and human-sized bandaid bandage dresses. She’s produced custom pieces for several international brands, including Nike, Jean-Paul Gaultier, Jacquemus and soon, ASAP Rocky.

It is impossible to ignore the ironic and humorous nature of her work. Not only is her Midas touch, transforming ordinary objects into thought provoking, remarkably crafted works of art, impressive, but she also reveals her cleverness and sense of humor in each piece through the impracticality of her chosen mediums. I mean how can you sip tea out of a mug made from Glossier’s signature pink bubble pouch?

Just as the cats hastily ate their cold cuts, viewers devour her mind-blogging, illusion-like creations, reposting them on their stories and sharing them with friends in awe, often without heed to the behind-the-scenes. You can’t help but think, how the hell did she think of that? Bois shares with me that a lot of people think her posts are CGI or photoshop, probably because they look flawless. In reality, she hand makes each item, only photographing and color touching them after.

She doesn’t mind though that her craftsmanship is going unnoticed by some; you can’t control what you can’t control. “If they're interested in my work they can look it up,” she says. “I play on illusions, so [them thinking it’s CGI] is another illusion right there.” In her typical Bois-fashion, rather than letting these CGI comments act as insults, she lets them elevate her work and further prove her oeuvre.

With each new project, Bois charters unmapped territory, because, simply put, no one else thinks of making what Bois imagines into existence. There is no template, no pre-existing version for Bois to draft off of, unless she’s drafting off one of her own earlier works. “I try to not get caught up in the logistics and feasibility right away,” she says.

Take for instance, a dress she created out of scrabble pieces, which took her a month to build. What the viewer can’t see from the pristine, Instagram-finished product is that although small, the scrabble tile is mighty and could only be defeated by using a Dremel to drill on both sides of the scrabble piece.

The result: tediously drilling 8 holes, rather than 4 on each individual tile. Patience, determination and a little help from her friends, sit at the core of Bois’s work. Bois looks to her friends, manager, assistant and family for a new perspective. You can’t create in a vacuum of your own mind. It takes a village.

“A lot of the problems I run into are in regards to my state of mind.” she says. “It’s all about a new set of eyes, a fresh set. If I sleep on a project and come back, it’s usually where I find a solution. The day before, I wanted to scrap a whole project. But the solution is always there in front of me. It’s about the mindset.”

You might be asking, WTF happens to a scrabble dress after it’s made? Or what happens to all produce used in her collaboration with Sweetgreen? In her studio archive, she keeps what she can keep, but the leaves and fresh food often used gets composted … or eaten. “Sometimes,” she reveals, “I take stuff apart where I need material. For example, the soul of a shoe or a certain strip of fabric that I used for something … like the strap of a watch.” Archiving also allows for her to look back at her creations, so she can revisit works to refine her processes.

Surprisingly, she did not intend to make art a career. She initially attended university to become a teacher. “I was working as a camp counselor for a while and I loved working with kids,” she says, “They had crazy imaginations and believed in everything, so I wanted to be a kindergarten teacher.”

While at school, Bois continued to use photography and found object craft as a creative outlet. So, when her Instagram postings gained traction, she took time off from school to pursue her art. Through osmosis, her intrigue with the imagination of her soon-to-be pupils evolved into the pursuit of her own ingenuity. She never returned to finish her degree. As a modern day Dadaist, though, Bois still watches Selling Sunset and finds heels uncomfortable but of course endures the pain because they’re just too cute.

Her playground now is the grocery store, where she gawks over the aesthetically pleasing, organized shelves of food. “I love when the little water sprinklers start to spray the veggies,” she says. “It’s just a moment in time, stand still.” No matter how many times she’s been at the grocery store, Bois traverses the aisles enraptured by the unique colors and texture surrounding her. It’s no wonder food plays such a pivotal role in her work and collaborations.

For one of her recent collaborations with furniture store Sarah Ellison, she designed mini-jello versions of their new couch. The couch reminded her of a blow-up couch, and a puffer coat at times, so she sought a medium that would embody this buoyancy. She took 3D renders of the couch to turn into molds, in which she’d then test various espresso-colored jello mixtures in. Once perfected, six molds were made and shipped to the caterer in charge of the Sarah Ellisons at Design Within Reach Los Angeles launch event.

Looking ahead at the unknown, Bois hopes to create more functional works. She wants her audience to engage with her work “not just through a photo, but through touch, wear, smell. Whether or not it’s a wearable, like her soon-to-be released shoes for purchase, or an object that you just keep on display on your shelf, Bois hopes her works can eventually enter her audience’s physical realities, so they can create their own relationship with her creations. “The functional aspect adds a layer of emotional relatability,” she says. Ultimately, beauty is the eye of the beholder — anything can offer meaning when you see it with a new perspective.