Dressing Like My Art: The Branding Experiment

For years I obsessed over my art style. Thinking about the marks and energy on the canvas. But I never really thought about what I looked like. Not the ideas behind the work, but how I show up next to it.

I finally realised that maybe I should look a bit more like my art. At the moment I dress fairly normal while my art is very different and original.

That kicked off a whole experiment.

The Workshop I Built in ChatGPT

I love a system, so I built myself a branding workshop in ChatGPT. I will spare you all the nerdy parts, but one of the first tasks it gave me was simple:

Make three mood boards. Artist identity. Material and mood. Cultural references.

I had made moodboards before but never like this.

Mood Board One: Artist Identity

I started by looking at how I show up visually. Not my paintings. Me.

I never really thought about what I wear as an artist. But the more I looked, the more obvious it felt. Pop stars dress to match their sound. So why shouldn’t artists dress to match their visual world.

I pulled together a mood board of jackets, boots, poses (ways of standing or sitting for photos). I am not the best at posing with my work, it always feels a bit awkward. So I paid attention to poses that felt more natural. Sitting on a stool. Leaning forward. Holding a brush. Not the ones with the drapey flexible twenty-year-olds. I don’t think I could pull those off.

Some outfits were far too colourful. My art is already colourful and I want it to be the star. But the shapes and attitude were useful. I loved the grungy jackets and boots with character. The kind of pieces that feel like they belong in the same world as my graffiti energy marks.

I even found the Doc Martens perfect boots but not in my size. So I did the next best thing. I painted my own.

Painting My Boots

I bought a pair of plain black high-top boots and a fabric pen from Amazon. I started doodling the same shapes and symbols that show up in my paintings. Hearts, lines, repeated words.

It worked, but the white didn’t ping out as much as I would have liked. So I switched to Daler Rowney fluid acrylic in an applicator bottle. It behaves in an imperfect way which I actually like. Some bits go on smooth. Some go on blobby. That rawness fits my world better than anything neat.

I finished them off with red laces and I love them.

Getting Braver with a Jacket

Once the boots worked, I went bigger. A black jacket this time.

I used the same Daler Rowney acrylic because it gives that slight grit and texture. My work is not polished. I do not want my clothes to look polished either. I added symbols, words, lines, the same visual language from my paintings.

This was the first time I felt like I was literally wearing my art.

Mood Board Two: Material and Mood

The last board was all punk zines, photocopied flyers, rough typography and messy layouts. That gave me direction for how my website and social graphics might evolve. I am not rebranding everything in one go. I am letting the visual world develop, then I will update my website last.

The Graffiti Wall

Once I saw those rough wall textures, I decided I needed a space that felt like part of the same universe as my paintings. So I created a graffiti wall.

It gives me a backdrop for shoots that fits the tone of my work. It makes everything feel more intentional. It also means I am not photographing colourful work against a plain wall that has nothing to do with the mood of the art.

What I Learned

I had no idea where this experiment would lead. I only knew that I looked kind of boring next to my work.

Creating my own clothes and wall changed that. I am starting to actually look like the artist who made the work.

This feels like stepping into the world my art already occupies.

This board was about the world around my art. Backgrounds, studio walls, textures. I went hunting for concrete, rough surfaces, scribbles, wires, anything messy, gritty or unpolished.

Seeing those textures all together sparked an idea. I realised I needed a wall that felt like part of the same world. Not a clean backdrop. Something with the same energy as my paintings.

That is where the idea for a graffiti wall came from.

Mood Board Three: Cultural References