studio job sculpts maximalist window display for Hermès hong kong

Studio Job collaborates with Hermès on Hortus Maximus

Dutch-Belgian artist Job Smeets designs a magical vegetable garden window display for Hermès Hong Kong that will be on view from August until November 2023. Studio Job and Hermès create a dream-like oasis in the bustling metropolis giving a breath of fresh air to the urban environment. Drawing from the eccentric world of prize-winning vegetable growers, as well as his own home vegetable garden in Belgium, Job Smeets weaves anthropomorphism into a strange and fantastical scene in the city. Hortus Maximus features animals taking on the role of elegant farmers, and vegetables growing to awe-inspiring proportions, almost as if from a childhood dream.

The majestic installation displays vegetables of gigantic proportions inventing a new kind of nature-inspired maximalism. The project follows a series of detailed drawings and 3D models created by Studio Job, known for its bronze sculptural work in pieces such as the Tree of Life in Faena, Miami, the horse bust sculpture at Chamber Gallery, NYC, and the Watering Can & Fruit Series.

all images courtesy of Studio Job

surreal scenes and elevated lowland icons come to life

The blending of surreal high-end finish and elevated lowland icons such as watering cans and wheelbarrows defines the artist’s distinctive style. The second collaboration between Job Smeets and Hermès exudes a fusion of icons and prize-like displays of Chinese gourds, leeks, and pumpkins into each window. ‘The project is filled with a sense of fairy-tale and how life was told to us as children’, explains the artist. The result is an artful, playful, and mysterious set of scenes. The design of Hermès windows in Hong Kong is grounded in the mannerism style by blowing the proportions up, in a way that the subjects become even more real and surreal, hyper-real. ‘Hortus Maximus is bold and astonishing, a photorealistic scene exploring the form of the vegetables and the texture and architecture of the plants created by nature’, shares Job Smeets.

The windows will be on view in Hermès flagship store, Landmark Price, 10 Chater Road Central Hong Kong from August until November 2023.

Job Smeets draws from the eccentric world of prize-winning vegetable growers

the window display weaves anthropomorphism into a strange and fantastical scene in the city

animals take on the role of elegant farmers, and vegetables grow to awe-inspiring proportions