The North Face and Alfie Kungu teamed up earlier this year to produce a first capsule collection. In a unique offering unlike anything The North Face has dropped before, the 10-piece unisex range – made up of garments, bags and mules – comes doused in the artist’s signature abstractural art.
The designs draw inspiration from Kungu’s enduring love of the outdoors, nurtured by his upbringing in the hills of Yorkshire. Kungu uses a palette that includes earthy greens as well as cool blues and deep violets. This is a reference to the adventurous wildlife that has always surrounded him. The overlapping prints can be seen as a landscape of rivers and mountains, with twinkling skies if you look closely.
For the new collaboration, Kungu took to both his remote Yorkshire studio and inner-city London space to create the “hundreds upon hundreds of characters, compositions and abstract pieces” that led to his final print. Kungu invited Hypebae to his East-London studio for an exclusive interview. Read more below.
What was the first thing that influenced your decision to pursue art?
I’ve always grown up around art in the house because my dad is a painter and my mum is also really good at painting. As a child I enjoyed drawing wild animals and monsters. It was a way to relax and was something that was so familiar that I didn’t stop.
Please tell us about the evolution of your practice through the years.
I’ve found that I don’t really like to break up my practice into separate things. It all flows together, I believe. The technique that I’ve been developing for just over a year is called relief painting. I’ll get a canvas and put the silk over it. Then, I’ll do the painting onto the silk and take off the canvas from the back and it’s got the bleed through – the relief. It creates beautiful nuances that you couldn’t deliberately paint in. It’s the gaps and mistakes from your actions that give more of an essence to the painting than the one you actually tried to do. It’s the bits that you don’t paint that tells more of a story. It’s almost become a bit overkill but when you’re familiar with something, it’s like your favorite meal, no matter how many times that you make it, you still kind of like it.
You have a distinct technique with bold colors and textures. Why should they be an integral part of your work?
One of my favorite things is to experiment with new materials. You want to feel the relationship between texture and color. My work is characterized by an exploration of different materials. This is what motivates me to keep creating. It’s also about color pairings. A single color is great. It is the connection between two colors that excites me.
The North Face
The North Face
The North Face
The North Face
The North Face
Let’s talk about the importance of materials. How does your collaboration with the North Face and work with garments compare with the usual art sheets that you create?
In fact, I approached it in the same way. I was thinking about how to translate my idea onto a piece artwork. Initially, I didn’t consider the fact that it was a garment or a bag or the mules. Just needed to create a piece and translate the elements into colors. So blue is the sky and water, while green is land and nature. Having these elements allowed me to create an environment in the painting as well as an abstract composition. I tried to break it down. First, I did the foreground, that’ll be like the river and it builds back to the mountains then the skies. Each color is related to different environments in nature.
Did you have any feelings or emotions that were not represented in the design?
It was great to be able share my passion and express my love for nature and the outdoors through my practice. They’re seemingly quite separate things – you might be quite outdoorsy, and also make artwork but they come together. It was an exciting experience to create this collection. I love the way it expresses my passion for nature and the outdoors.
Why is it that you are so fascinated by the outdoors?
I’m always inspired by the outdoors because no matter how familiar you are with somewhere, there’s always something new that you’ll come across and it’s just really important to me to spend time outdoors.
What does the North Face really mean to someone who grew up in the country?
Ever since I was young, it’s always been the most sought-after outdoor brand. When I was younger, I asked my mom if she could help me get one. It was freezing cold when I started university in Bristol. I used to wear this The North Face puffer jacket in the studio. Over the years, it just got more and more paint on and eventually it was covered on the inside and outside – and I still have that jacket. I’d wear it all the time in my studio and people would always say, “Is that a limited edition?” Or, “Is that a collab?” I’d always reply, “one day, one day.” But without realizing, the jacket related to this collaboration. I thought ‘I could do it like this’ and make it part of the story.
Hypebeast is now showing the Alfie Kungu collaboration with The North Face. To shop the pieces featured, head to The North Face’s website now.