Chris Labrooy Makes Cars Dream Again
I have a soft spot for images that refuse to behave. Chris Labrooy’s cars never sit politely in a frame: they float, bend, stretch or end up somewhere a car has no business being. And somehow, they still feel completely at home.
That is the pleasure of his work. The technical finish is convincing enough to make you look twice, but the idea is never simply to make a perfect picture of a car. Labrooy takes familiar objects—especially the cars we grew up admiring—and moves them into a world governed by play.
His Porsche images make that instinct easy to understand. A 911 appears in a swimming pool, poised between a childhood toy and an impossible full-size machine. In another scene, a silver car seems to grow out of a palm tree. The joke is gentle; the image is beautifully composed. You recognise the car, then have to reconsider the space around it.
From the bedroom floor to a museum
Labrooy has described childhood memories of pushing die-cast cars across the floor as part of the thinking behind Dream Big., his installation for Porsche’s The Art of Dreams. First shown at the Pérez Art Museum in Miami, the work later travelled to Gardens by the Bay in Singapore. It turns that small, private act of play into something monumental: a child and a car, enlarged until the dream occupies the room.
That movement between the everyday and the surreal runs through more than his automotive work. His Garden of Eames project remixes the familiar shell chair. Plywood Paradise, his 2024 animated short, builds a playful world from inflatable forms, vehicles and characters.
Cars with room for imagination
His commissioned projects include an artwork for the 30th anniversary of the Lamborghini Diablo, work for Nike and Breitling, and a Lexus 300e campaign that translated the car’s character into unexpected product narratives. He moves between car culture, product design and animation without losing his lightness of touch.
What I like most is that Labrooy’s images don’t ask the car to prove itself through speed, power or a spec sheet. They let it be a memory, a toy, a prop—or the beginning of a strange little story. In a culture that can take its machines very seriously, that freedom feels refreshing.
A car can be an object of desire and still make you smile. Chris Labrooy understands both sides of that equation.
By Patrice Meignan — TRANSMISSION by TheArsenale.
Further reading: Chris Labrooy’s official portfolio · Porsche interview on his Art of Dreams work · Transmission: Porsche 911 991 Speedster.
