Bob Basset
Serhii Petrov, known professionally as Bob Basset, is a Ukrainian artist and a co-founder of an art studio under the same name.
The studio creates wearable art pieces such as masks, bags, clutches, bracelets, cases, and more in the techno-romanticism genre. Artist works primarily with leather, metal, stone, wood, bone, ceramic, and glass. Over the years, leather masks have become his main object of artistic practice, and they have been used in a variety of arenas. Bob Basset items have been exhibited all over the world, often as main attributes at Fashion Week shows and at exhibitions and projects, including the International Museum Day. Collectors from different countries often buy Bob Basset masks for their private collections.
The studio was co-founded in 1989 by Serhii Petrov and his brother, Oleg, in Kharkiv, Ukraine. After Oleg's death in 2011, Serhii Petrov became the face, main artist, and manager of the brand.
In 2016, Bob Basset was included in a list of nine revolutionary Ukrainian designers. The studio's items were highly appraised by the founder of the steampunk style, William Gibson, filmmaker and artist David Lynch, and post-cyberpunk and science fiction author Cory Doctorow. Bob Basset created masks and other items for the Givenchy brand and stylists Panos Yiapanis and Riccardo Tisci. The studio also worked with the Ukrainian brands sasha.kanevski and L'UVE. A mask from the Bob Basset collection "Mashrabiya" was used in Hollywood actress Elizabeth Banks' photo shoot. A number of Bob Basset masks were created for a movie produced by Ridley Scott Associates and Michael Bay, for the movie Metallica: Through the Never, and were used to promote the American TV show The Last Ship. Bob Basset masks were used in a number of music videos for bands and artists. From 2013, Bob Basset creates masks for Sid Wilson from the music band Slipknot; the studio also worked with Metallica, Korn, Avril Lavigne, Otep, Tantric, Zayn, British DJ Jungleboi, Dutch DJ R3hab, Beissoul & Einius, Ghost. Bob Basset created gaming design pieces for the international company Plarium, and a mask for the Iron Custom Motorcycles speed record project.
Bob Basset have appeared in the media Vogue International, The New York Times, The New York Times Fashion Magazine, Flaunt, WAD, Vice U.K., Bizarre, INSIDE Artzine, Trendson magazine, Dazed, METCHA, Wired Italia, and others.
Bob Basset also created personal collections: "Mashrabiya", "Survivors", "Calvary" , and "Turnskin".
Art
Style, working process and materials
Techno-romanticism
From the start, Bob Basset creations were seen as steampunk in style, and later he was referred to as a "steampunk guru." However, the Petrov brothers considered themselves the founders of their own style: "techno-romanticism."Over the years, Bob Basset became known as "techno-romanticism pioneer." Serhii Petrov often describes his studio pieces as "real objects from unreal worlds."
Techno-romanticism doesn't have straightforward rules, so the artist is free to mix different styles, items, and materials. The style involves idealization of the technology and mechanics and romanticization of the creative process and its result.
Working process and team growth
Petrov considers everything around him an inspiration for his work, from human emotions to objects and nature. He is passionate about experimenting with technology and seeking new skills. He doesn't draw primary sketches, but starts to make an object at once after working with the material and understanding its qualities, because of his belief that "a tool has a great influence on the result."The manufacture of one mask can take from ten hours to a year. To create a mask not only esthetically pleasing but also comfortable to wear, Petrov thinks through the ventilation system and sometimes arranges trials to see how long a person can wear it easily.
The studio has a team of four to six assistant designers, but the number of people involved on a certain project depends on the task. In general, Serhii doesn't let outsiders visit his workshop.
Materials
Bob Basset's primary material is leather. He also uses metal, stone, wood, bone, ceramic, and glass. The artist's main criteria for leather is that it has an "ethical origin" and is "a product of animal husbandry," not only because all the workshop processes depend on the quality of material, but to show his respect towards the material. The studio uses leather from many countries, including from Ukraine, Belarus, Italy, and Africa.Objects d'art
Masks
Masks have become Bob Basset's specialty. He makes unique leather masks for use in a number of different fields such as fashion, music, cinema, and so on.The studio has more than a thousand masks in its portfolio, including masks representing demons, zombies, unicorns, aliens, various animals, and dragons. Bob Basset created a number of different skull and horse masks, as well as a mask with horns that look like claws. Some of the Bob Basset masks are his famous masks for Sid Wilson, the Plague Doctor mask, the Cthulhu mask, the David Michelangelo mask, a mask that looks like Darth Vader’s helmet, and an Orthodox Van Helsing. All of the Bob Basset masks have a complicated structure; some of them have built-in cooling systems, 3D-glasses, and lasers.
Bob Basset has made masks for bikers, a motorcycle helmet for a private collection, and a biker's mask for the Iron Custom Motorcycles speed record project Inspirium.
Dragons
Co-founder, Oleg Petrov, has been fascinated by dragons since childhood, so dragons became one of the main subjects manufactured by the Bob Basset studio. A number of dragon pieces were created throughout the years, including bags, helmets, toys, masks, and costumes.In 2006, the studio presented the Dragon Backpack, which became famous on the internet. As of 2018, twelve years after the first presentation, the backpack remains still popular among leather-item lovers. In 2015, the news about Bob Basset's Dragon Backpack replica was reposted nearly 100 000 times and liked around 44 000 times on Facebook.
Eventually, the original backpack was sold to a private collection and Bob Basset created a replica that also received wide discussion.
Other items
Over the years, the Bob Basset studio produced a collection of "strange artwork" for example, a device that helps one to connect with aliens, a system of hiding places for one's house, and a turtle which served as a knife container. At some point, the studio created sapphire knives and leather wings with a wingspan of four meters.In 2011, the studio created leather Christmas tree decorations in steampunk style.
History
Oleg's influence
The Bob Basset brand was founded in 1989 as a leather workshop in Kharkiv, Ukraine by brothers Oleg and Serhii Petrov. The studio was named after Oleg Petrov's dog, a basset hound named Bob.Before "Bob Basset" was used as the studio name, it was a nickname for older Oleg. Oleg, whose first specialty was metallurgy, started to work with leather as a teenager. The book Two Little Savages, by Ernest Thompson Seton, inspired him to work with leather, and he started to sew Indian clothes at about twelve years old. He made his first leather boots at the age of fourteen. In adulthood, Oleg continued to make his own footwear, and became interested in creating leather accessories, including women's hand-bags. By the time he helped found Bob Basset, he had worked with leather for twenty years, learning the craft from old books on leather, chemistry, and technology.
The workshop officially became the Bob Basset art studio in the 2000s. From the beginning, Oleg was the lead founder. He wanted the studio to create items that "have never been made before." To ensure his creations were unique and came solely from his imagination, he lived in isolation from art books, television, blogs, and even people.
Early history: the first decade
In 1988, when the celebration of Halloween was just becoming common in Soviet Union through American movies, the Petrov brothers created around ten carnival masks, which they later sold. In 1989, the workshop turned its attention to work on leather accessories.At first, the Petrov brothers didn't have enough money to afford materials, but they kept working to achieve their "ambitious goals." By 2001, with initial capital of $50, the workshop started to make leather items for Ukrainian sex shops. The internet was young at the time, so the brothers had to promote their products in person. Serhii Petrov travelled all around Ukraine to promote and deliver their leather creations. The studio was then the only local leather-item manufacturers that supplied sex shops.
Eventually, the Ukrainian media became interested in Bob Basset products, but Oleg Petrov felt that working in the sex industry was "not the best way to achieve immortality," so he started to sell products on eBay instead of proceeding as a supplier.
The eBay shop attracted an audience, and the brothers started to work on commission. Later, Bob Basset products were also available for purchase on Makers Market, another online handcraft marketplace. In 2006, the brothers displayed their creations to the public on a Bob Basset account on LiveJournal, a global blogging platform.
In April 2007, Bob Basset presented the Cthulhu mask.
With the growing popularity on the internet, Bob Basset started gaining fans and clients. By 2008, the studio started to be recognized internationally with a number of articles and mentions of their work in magazines and online.
In 2009, Bob Basset presented the leather Paw Shoes and "lace-up, claw-bearing" mittens. Photos of the Bob Basset Paw Shoes were published in The New York Times Magazine.
In 2009, the studio made seven or eight masks for the Carl Erik Rinsch short movie called The Gift, which was part of a collaboration of five filmmakers named Parallel Lines and presented by the Ridley Scott Associates production company. However, only four of the masks were eventually used in the project.