Mandy Hudson’s ‘Bag of Bags’

Mandy Hudson’s ‘Bag of Bags’

This is a pre-made SINGLE ITEM. To choose your own combination click the ‘Variations’ box on the home page.

A one-off vegan leather handbag
Main body: 23 x 28 x 12cm (9 x 11 x 5 inches)
Including strap:50 x 28 x 12cm
Original oil on canvas painting, navy vegan leather (cactus), brushed copper fixtures, white poplin lining with inner zip and side pockets
2025

The bag has a detachable strap and comes with a free 1/50 Assembly Line chain keyring.

“These are things seen at markets and junk shops. Groups of objects forming unplanned arrangements which I like for their abstract qualities and resonance of their second-hand history.” Mandy Hudson

Mandy Hudson’s understated paintings and prints lend themselves well to reproduction and editions. Taking as inspiration the humble ad-hoc compositions of everyday life, Hudson filters out the visual noise, landing softly on the bare essentials of joyful colour, formal relations of texture, light, and ambience. The paintings deal in vestige and aura, the lingering trace of pre-loved activity.

By placing emphasis on the dusty corners of English charity shops and car boot fairs Hudson reassigns not only value in the monetary sense, but also confronts our values as consumers and custodians of our world. Hence, there appears an incongruous clash of morality within the work, in opposition to its country fair charm.

Assembly Line thrives on these juxtapositions. The chance to construct a what-if scenario with Mandy was a natural and unrefusable temptation. The resulting ‘Bag of Bags’ handbag signifies an interesting journey to date, whereby the reality of production costs alongside the complexity of the design have resulted in this single well-crafted bag.

It’s no coincidence that the first work in this potential series of bags includes a painting of bags. As a producer of art multiples Assembly Line is highly concerned with the very nature of producing art in numbers. The ‘Bag of Bags’ refers obliquely to the biblical trope of feeding the 5000 with 7 loaves and a few small fish. For every 10 grains of wheat sown in the ground, 300–400 grains are harvested. With luck, the ‘Bag of Bags’ is the first in an AL origin story whereby the one bag gives rise to a bounteous collection of further bags by Mandy and other artists.