Handbag Vessels
A series of sculptural vessels by Nigel VMU that reframe one of fashion’s most recognisable objects — the handbag — into a functional artwork.
Drawing from iconic silhouettes such as the Birkin and Telfar, Nigel VMU translates these forms through a sculptural process, stripping them of their original material language and recasting them in matte resin. The pieces retain the precision and structure of the original designs, while softening into objects that exist between artefact and everyday utility.
By transforming symbols of status, identity, and consumption into vessels for living elements — flowers, plants, water — Nigel VMU shifts their meaning. What once held personal belongings now holds life. The object moves from possession to presence.
The series sits within Art of Living, a wider body of work by Nigel VMU exploring how sculpture can exist within daily environments — not as something observed from a distance, but something lived with. Familiar cultural forms are recontextualised, elevated, and made tactile.
Operating in tension between luxury and accessibility, permanence and ephemerality, object and function, the works reflect Nigel VMU’s broader practice of reimagining cultural symbols into contemporary sculptural artefacts. Through this, the series poses a simple question — what happens when objects of desire are re-authored as part of everyday life?
