Darren Romanelli’s new collaborative Cactus Man Vessel project from Avante Art is rooted in his passion for collecting and raising plants. The triple collaboration grew out of conversations with Neighborhood founder Shinsuke Takizawa that led to fun, unusual photoshopped hybrid images of Romanelli as a cactus man.
Cactus Man comes to life in three separate, complementary elements — a vinyl art toy, a shirt celebrating the human-plant hybrid character from Neighborhood’s plant-focused SRL (Specimen Research Laboratory) brand, and naturally a stoneware vessel from Candice Romanelli’s CRamics to tie the release back to the original inspiration for the project.
The soft vinyl toy features a green/yellow cactus head, an SRL apron, green plants, and old-school sneakers. Breathing life into the hybrid concept, the figure’s cactus head can be removed to reveal Romanelli underneath. The art toy also includes a pair of cactus plant accessories that can be wielded as weapons of sorts.
An edition of 50, the Cactus Man Vessel set is available from Avant Arte for $1051. For more on the project, see Avant Arte’s interview with Darren Romanelli and Neighborhood Founder Shinsuke Takizawa.
