Print All Over Me + Jon Burgerman
A colorful collection of internet-inspired wearable art, from “like-worthy” pants to “attachment” bags
No space, whether it be blank pages, buildings or even a person’s right arm (for tattooing), is safe from UK-raised, Brooklyn-based artist (and CH favorite) Jon Burgerman‘s doodles and cheeky sense of humor. The playful artist’s most recent endeavor, the second half of which launches today, is an official clothing and accessories collaboration with Print All Over Me (PAOM), a platform that makes high-quality, custom digital printing a viable option for amateurs and veterans alike. Artists simply upload their own designs onto “blank canvases,” including apparel and even furniture like bean bags.
The PAOM team had been fans of Burgerman for some time and, when they found out that he had actually been using the site to make his own pieces, PAOM reached out to make their relationship official. The results are quintessential Burgerman, with shirts to towels graffitied with bright colors in his instantly recognizable aesthetic. In the collection, he has fun bringing the digital into the physical world by making jabs at our internet-driven lives: drawstring pants covered in “Likes,” a sweater that’s meant to resemble a cluttered desktop, a long-sleeve T-shirt filled with pop-up ads, and more.
“A lot of the pieces are informed by the world of tech; the internet, wearables, smartphones and spam,” Burgerman tells CH. “I love PAOM’s mantra of ‘making the internet real’ and wanted to take that as a starting off point along with piggybacking on the current wearable tech trend. I thought it would be fun to make it amusingly literal, so went about designing Circuit Bored tops and Attachment bags (with a nod to that Microsoft paperclip that always knew just when you were starting to type out a letter in Word).”
He also created an all-doodled-over yellow jacket for this PAOM collaboration, which will bring a smile to longtime fans, as Burgerman is spotted often on the street in his own. “I took the chance to indulge my passion for yellow jackets by adding [one]. I purchased a yellow jacket in Tokyo back in 2008 and wear it each winter,” he says. “People think it’s really funny, which only makes me want to wear it more. Increasingly I’m associated with the yellow jacket and I’ve started to think about more as a mode-of-being than as just a jacket. It’s a philosophy.” It’s a movement to spread joy and brightness to the masses, even having its own hashtag (#theyellowjacketclub) and a monthly competition for which Burgerman awards a doodle (and some stickers) to the best yellow jacket in the wild.
“I’ve been drawing over anything and everything for the last 15 or so years. I customize clothing for friends all the time,” Burgerman says. “Recently I’ve been taking advantage of the fact we can now almost print on anything, on demand. This has allowed me to take the feel of my hand customized pieces available to more people. My lines and compositions, characters and colors can exist across a multiple of surfaces and mediums.”
“I love that people can dress up inside of my artwork,” he says. “I think that’s more amazing than having someone display my artwork in their home. They get to live inside the art and become part of it.”
Browse the entire collection on Print All Over Me, where T-shirts start at $45. Burgerman is headed to Seoul, South Korea next for his upcoming exhibition, which opens 2 April 2015, at Avenue L Art Hall within the new Lotte World Tour complex. Be sure to also keep an eye on ongoing collaborations between Print All Over Me and other artists including artist Cheryl Donegan, as well as an upcoming project with Buffalo shoes launching next week.
Portrait courtesy of Jon Burgerman, studio image courtesy of Bas Berkhout, all other images courtesy of Print All Over Me
