What happens when an object loses its original purpose?

CUSTOM BOMB — ACT I is the first sculptural body of work by French artist Gabrielle Dromain.

Working with discarded spray cans, Gabrielle cuts, opens and transforms an object traditionally associated with creation itself. Once emptied of its original function, the can becomes a vessel — a small world in which familiar figures, memories and cultural references are displaced and given a new identity.

Each sculpture is individually constructed and painted by hand. Raw, torn metal contrasts with bursts of colour, dripping paint and unexpected elements hidden within the object. Influenced by the physicality and spontaneity of action painting, Gabrielle allows gesture, accident and material to remain visible throughout the work.

At the centre of CUSTOM BOMB lies a broader exploration of identity and belonging.

The figures and symbols we recognise from popular culture form part of a shared visual memory. Removed from their familiar environments and placed inside Gabrielle’s reconstructed industrial objects, they become fragments of something collective yet deeply personal — reminders of childhood, generation, community and the images through which we recognise one another.

There is also a contradiction at the heart of the series.

The spray can can create and destroy. The metal is damaged before it can be transformed. An industrial object becomes a sculpture. Something discarded becomes something collected.

Destruction becomes an act of creation.

CUSTOM BOMB — ACT I brings together a limited body of unique sculptures, each signed and individually numbered by Gabrielle Dromain.

It marks not the conclusion of a project, but the beginning of an artistic research into transformation, identity, material and belonging.

ACT I is where the story begins.