CURATED BY MARK JAMES

www.markjamesworks.com

Mark James is a London based artist. His multi-facetted and extensive portfolio includes: video (direction), photography, illustration, toy and product design but Mark’s main activity is graphic design. Inspired since childhood by the 1980′s British punk bands, Mark has stayed involved to the music industry, especially in his position of Art Director of the British records label Island Record; he works closely with bands such as The Fratellis, The Charlatans and Euro Childs. Following in the footsteps of his punk idols, Mark expresses a form of rebellion and strikes a nerve with the establishment, whilst appealing at once to the general public. With his major work Cardboy, he exhibited and distributed its characters the world over. The main idea behind the Cardboys is to render packaging as an object in itself – sick of the plastic packaging used for toys, Mark started to design characters on shoe boxes: Cardboy was born and can carry on forever. We had met Mark James in 2006. For the site launch of Little Fashion Gallery, the artist transformed our packaging, with the cloud emblem, into a totally offbeat theatre scene that we gave to the press. Since then, we have kept in touch and Mark follows LFG’s evolution.