Watches | Swatch
BREAK FREE - and express yourself through art
| 2024-11-12 |     |
Embracing the work of a new generation of artists inspired by one magical moment.
This fall, we’ve been providing the time, space and freedom for people to express themselves with the Swatch BREAK FREE Collection. While the first four models featured the ground- breaking work of Keith Haring, for the final four models in the collection, we offered our watches as a blank canvas to a new generation of artists whose work is diverse in style, medium and attitude.
The brief? Based on what you know of the Swatch World Breakdance Championship from the Roxy in NYC in 1984, create an artwork for a Swatch model of your choice. As we imagined, each artist was inspired by something different, and each took a different approach to the opportunity. These are the stories behind the watches created by Grotesk, Simple Bao, Thandiwe Muriu and Hattie Stewart for the Swatch BREAK FREE Collection.
These four artist edition watches bring the work of a new generation of artists to a new generation of art lovers. Closing the circle and bringing the inspiration of the original event to the twenty-first century, these are the Swiss-made, water-resistant timepieces that complete the Swatch BREAK FREE Collection and tell a story that only Swatch can tell. Just as the artists have broken free and let their inspiration run wild, the collection invites you to express yourself freely with your chosen model and show what time means to you. BREAK FREE!
HATTIE'S HEART
This BIG BOLD echoes the love British artist Hattie Stewart saw for breaking, art, music and the shared moment from the event. Made from biosourced materials it features a 47 mm dial and hands that say it all: “Love Endures”.
HATTIE STEWART
Hattie Stewart is a contemporary British artist and illustrator best known for her distinctive doodle-bombing style where she adds playful illustrations to existing magazine covers, advertisements, and other printed media. Her work is characterised by vibrant colour palettes, cartoonish figures, and a sense of humour that often blends the cute and kitsch with the subversive. By avoiding a more conventional illustrative style, her work is bold and experimental in application, enabling her to eschew the more traditional boundaries within the field of illustration. Beyond doodle- bombing, her works have also been applied to product, murals, animation and sculpture. Over the last decade, her work has gradually gained international attention, leading to collaborations with various fashion houses and magazines, as well as independent publishers and musical artists.
FREEZE TIME
Swiss artist Grotesk captures the dynamic energy of the 1984 Swatch World Breakdance Championship into a sleek black and white design. Made from biosourced materials, this watch features the 12 basic breakdancing moves on its strap and colorful hands that echo the artwork Keith Haring created for the event.
GROTESK
Kimou Meyer was born in Geneva, Switzerland in 1974. Raised in a family of architects, Kimou found inspiration both at home and in the worlds of skateboarding, sports and hip hop. After graduating with highest honors from Belgium’s Ecole Nationale Supérieure des Arts Visuels de La Cambre in 1999, Kimou relocated to New York City to pursue joint ventures in art and creative direction. That same year, he forged his GROTESK alter ego to practice mixed media artwork exploring themes of commercialization, social engineering, and the humorous undertones of everyday life in New York. In 2010 he cofounded the sports-focused creative agency Doubleday & Cartwright and magazine Victory Journal, training his focus on major commercial projects.
UNITY ALWAYS
Kenyan photographer Thandiwe Muriu drew inspiration from the theme of unity. This bright watch features a photograph of joined hands over a traditional fabric print style background. A special message is printed on its dial: “Where there is unity there is always victory.”
THANDIWE MURIU
Thandiwe Muriu is a Kenyan artist known for creating surreal illusions through textiles and photography. Working with fabric, she makes her subjects both disappear and serve as a canvas of reflection to the questions of womanhood, identity and its evolution over time. Merging history and the present, she pairs each work with an African proverb, expressing the collected wisdom of generations recorded through oral history even as she communicates culture in a visual form. Her usage of proverbs invites consideration on how heritage informs and shapes the contemporary African identity even as the continent rapidly changes under the influence of the forces of globalization. Recently, she launched her book, Camo, and was presented at the Venice Biennale Arte by the Centre for Contemporary Art, Lagos. Since the start of her artistic career in 2020, Thandiwe has collaborated with many well- known brands.
B-BOT
Adorned with B-Bot, a character created by Hong Kong street artist Bao Ho, this model channels the soul of breakdance music with a highly futuristic design. Made from biosourced materials it comes with a fun day/date window that doubles as a “life force” indicator.
BAO HO
Born and based in Hong Kong, Bao is a self- taught artist known for her freestyle murals and illustrations. She started her professional career in 2015. Bao has a distinctive style: monochromic art with tightly packed figures including human bodies, animals, flowers and patterns. Her large-scale mural works are transformed into other forms of art through the collaborations with international brands, and she has travelled and worked on projects in all corners of the globe including Australia, Switzerland, UK, France, Japan, Indonesia, Italy and Czech Republic.