Cory Dawson found himself inspired by artist Selwyn Senatori, a Dutch Neo-pop master who takes Moët & Chandon bottles and paints sassy comments into the labels. This playful mocking of the bottles Selwyn did, when so many portrayals of liqueur in the media are polished and elegant, inspired Cory to take his own unconventional look at alcohol bottles. He was drawn to Dom Pérignon, “one of the most iconic with one of the most iconic labels,” in Cory’s opinion, and got thinking on how he could manipulate it into a fun, edgy, piece of art.
Cory decided that for his unconventional bottles, he would shoot a pattern on a pattern, having the bottles camouflaged against bright, artistic backgrounds. With a bit of a painting background himself, Cory knew he could paint the bottles and their matching backgrounds. He just had to figure out three distinct concepts for the designs.
The first concept he came up with was the dots. It was based off of a painting of a flower he had done years ago. From there, he wanted something with more structure. “When I started thinking about secondary options I wanted designs that would clearly break between the bottle edge and the background,” says Cory. The stripes concept was perfect for this as he mocked it up with the white lines on the bottle aligning with the black lines on the background, creating a white vs. black edge around the bottle. Finally, Cory wanted a concept that broke totally free from structure, and with a nod to Jackson Pollock, landed on splatter paint. Here’s an example of Cory’s Photoshop mockup:
When it came time for execution, everything had been mocked up in Photoshop and meticulously measured. He started with the stripes concept, which he not only had to measure perfectly on the background, but also on the curved surface of the bottle. “I definitely got creative, and definitely went over the two-week painting time I had originally planned,” says Cory. In the end, he was able to accomplish the design with the white and black stripes lining up perfectly. Cory knew he could have done everything much faster with retouching, but he wanted the look that only hand-painting could get him.
Next, Cory painted the dots, which was the longest of the concepts to execute. He practiced on a cheaper bottle to make sure he got the execution down.
I painted each dot so that it wouldn’t touch another dot of the same color. I also wanted the dots to be crisp and distinct, so I painted two colors at a time and then let them dry. That way there would be no smudging. As you can imagine, this process took a long time.”
And finally, he painted the splatter paint, his reward for the long, precise work he was doing before.
After painting two very structured concepts, the splatter concept was a ton of fun. I covered up a large part of my apartment and then just started tossing paint.”
Cory was really excited to shoot this series with a Hasselblad Multishot H4D-200MS, and after releasing the photos, Hasselblad actually contacted him about featuring his work on their website. They interviewed Cory about the project, and about how the camera tied into his vision.
I wanted bold, clean, striking colors, and I think the results just speak for themselves.
To view more of Cory’s work, visit corydawson.cm.