If you skate and live in England you’ll know about Slam City Skates, meaning you’ll probably be familiar with their bear (safe) t-shirt. Even if you don’t skate, Colin Greenwood from Radiohead wore it on TV, so you have no excuses. Arran Gregory is the artist behind that bear, as well as a multitude of other animal inspired clothing for some awesome British companies. He also just completed designing a board in conjunction with Coca Cola for the run-up to the 2012 Olympics; this man’s got shit going on.

Arran tells us, ‘I’ve skateboarded since I was about eleven and I was always a pretty creative kid, in to drawing and making things. I started studying in London when I was 18, which is when I got heavily in to graphics and visual art.’

A recent graphic design graduate from the Chelsea College of Art & Design, Arran is working freelance on a series of sculptures, his first being the life sized bear you see above. He explained, ‘I wanted to create a 3D sculpture of the mirror animals I’d designed and chose the bear because I find bears really visually powerful. I like my work to always have an impact on the viewer and evoke some sort of emotional response.’

He plans on turning the original in to a series; a mirror wolf next and eventually a run of mirror-ball trophy heads, ‘like the kind that hunters mount on shields.’ Until then though, ‘The Mirror Bear’ is being exhibited at the Electric Blue Gallery up to February 2010, so go and check it out!

words Jamie Clifton

Arran Gregory

This entry was tagged as arran gregory, ART., bear, Skateboarding, slam city skates.