Lyndon Barrois is an accomplished stop-motion and CG character animator, supervisor, and director. At an early age he developed a childhood hobby of sculpting athletes from discarded chewing gum wrappers. “When I was about 10, mom, you know, she chewed tons of Wrigley’s gum, I mean all the time,” Barrois recalls. He explains, “So much that the doctors made her stop. She would discard the paper and so I’d pick it up one day and I’d say ‘well, so if I twist it with the paper side out, I can color the paper.’ That’s how it all started.”

Featured in PAMM’s latest exhibition, “The World’s Game: Fútbol and Contemporary Art”, “Fútballet” is a series of “sportraits” of legendary players and of moments throughout men’s and women’s World Cup history executed in the miniature sculpture and stop-motion style of animation. Included among these are Zinedine Zidane’s world-famous head butt of Marco Materazzi in 2006 and one of Carli Lloyd’s goals against Japan in 2016. Made entirely by hand, the work is an example of Lyndon Barrois’s “gumation” technique that he began while pursuing his MFA at CalArts. Fútballet’s filmed companion piece was shot entirely on an iPhone 6, marrying traditional stop-motion animation methods with today’s independent production technology.

See Barrois’ work as part of The World’s Game: Fútbol and Contemporary Art through September 2, 2018.