Royal College of Art graduate Chris Labrooy first explored CGI as a means to avoid the expense of physical protoypes, but has since become a master of the digital arts, creating hyper-realistic and totally bewitching images (moving or otherwise.) A youthful desire to be a car designer has made automobiles his primary subject—each one is rendered with incredible skill and eye for detail, exploring the materiality of chrome, glass, and paint, and capturing the light that reflects off their sensuous forms. He places iconic cars such as Volkswagen Beetles and Porsche 911s in situations that are sublime (mid-century architecture features strongly) but also sublimely silly—flamingos and rubber ducks combined with absurd automobile aerobics. Now based in Aberdeenshire in north-east Scotland, and driving the latest in a long line of Porsches, he has a steady stream of clients. And not just car manufacturers such as Lamborghini, Citroën, and Jaguar. Brands as diverse as Nike, Apple, McDonalds, and Transport For London have all turned up at Chris’s door, asking him to create, in his own words, “moments of happiness.”
