Our studio Sunday artist this week is Bart Hess. Hess is a Dutch artist and designer known for dressing Lady Gaga in her “Born This Way” music video. The artist’s works often weave together elements of fashion, fine art, industrial design, and other tactile and material experiments. Recently, Hess has also been creating works with digital elements.

Hess’ studio looks sleek and clean, like a model of a modern designer or architect’s studio. It reminds me somewhat of the studios of John Houck or Valerie Blass -- both artists keep strikingly neat and clean studios. Hess’ space, though, speaks more to a factory-like mood and atmosphere.

Because of the nature of the artist’s design work, his studio must support a great number of different types of media and processes -- looking at this photo, it seems like there must be a great secret hidden behind the gray curtain at the back of the shot. It’s likely that the artist employs studio helpers, and Hess is also frequently collaborating with other artists, designers, musicians, and creators.

Bart Hess has gained notoriety in recent years for his creations that manipulate recognizable materials so heavily that they become bizarre, alien forms. In some works, the artist combines these forms with human figures, or creates a collaborative workspace, exploring the coexistence between human, man-made, and objects in-between.

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