Nazif Lopulissa 

This summer we invited Nazif Lopulissa to Vlieland, for the merchandise of the festival Into The Great Wide Open. Not knowing what he would encounter, he went on the ferry to Vlieland last July. Having never been to Vlieland, a five hour journey felt the same as if he went to Portugal. It felt just as far. Which is a good starting point for a creative brain. Many steps away from the now known floral shirts. 

When he arrived he was greeted by a thick layer of grey clouds. Luckily he brought his girlfriend, and some nice wines. Quickly, Nazif rented a bike and started exploring the island. The grey weather made the flowers in the dunes stand out even more than normally. He found them in beautiful colors: orange, yellow, purple. Already during the first hours on the island, he was inspired. He really wanted to grasp the cheerfulness. He could’ve painted it, like he was used to in his studio in Rotterdam. This time, Nazif brought his scanner to the island with the intention to scan his sketches. However, the idea of scanning the handpicked flowers directly leaded to a new approach of working.

In his tent on Stortemelk he scanned the flowers he found, not just for inspiration, but to use them as objects. The scans are a as pure as possible recording of the natural state of a flower. Afterwards, nothing was changed in the colors of the design, all the colors in the prints are just as the were.

The two items inspired by this process are a T-shirt and a resort shirt. Every item has a different print, because the fabric is cut from a large print. Only when you pick a flower and research it well, you’ll see wat it is. This focus is seen in the T-shirt, where you see the overall selection of flowers and plants.