Craig Green has a long-standing interest in the concept of impermanence. From wooden sculptures set ablaze to his latest campaign for SS19, the metamorphosis of material as it shifts from one physical state to another has repeatedly occupied the designer’s attention.

His latest set of images, shot by long-time collaborator Dan Tobin Smith, explore the binary of destruction vs. construction as two intimately connected forces. A triptych of life-size images – each painstakingly constructed from wood, straw and paint, and inspired by the classical prints of his SS19 collection – are compressed by the grip of a vice that distorts them from every side.

The simple illustrations, each depicting scenes of mythological conflict between man and beast like the primitive sketches of prehistoric caves, are temporarily ruined, only to be re-arranged and re-born into new abstract configurations. What at first appears a demonstration of masculine strength and bravery is squashed into submission. Man and beast become one, and while the image loses its narrative value it adopts a new one as amorphous forms of line and colour.