About

WHAT IS TIGERBOB?

Tigerbob is an artist-founded, artist-led fine art, fashion, and character brand.  The purpose of the brand is to highlight the one-of-a-kind work of the artist, Gossamer Rozen, and to scale up the work with sustainable manufacturing practices and collaborations.

Tigerbob, the titular character, takes the form of a pixel motif and hand-drawn tiger head. The design appears in apparel, hand-drawn illustrations, sculpture, accessories, digital art and more.

Tigerbob’s existence is active resistance against the systemic issues that have created an unfair, unsustainable creative economy by empowering the artist to retain full creative control of the brand and its products and services.

Among Tigerbob's many projects is Gossamer's formal studio practice, which explores personal questions about knitting as an art form versus its domestic connotations, and draws connections between grid inputs and the digital and physical outputs they produce.

 

BUSINESS & PROJECT STRUCTURE

Tigerbob is the platform for the artist Gossamer Rozen, providing creative freedom and exploration. In turn, the artist creates art objects and programs that support the growth of the business. The push and pull of the artist’s unbound creativity versus the requirements needed to maintain a sustainable business becomes a model constraint that guides the artist, the business, and the work produced.

Explorations include but are not limited to the following:

Work presented for sale on this web store falls in a number of project categories, each with their own artist statement, purpose, and exploration. Visit the project website tigerbob.global to learn more.

 


THE TIGERBOB MOTIF

Tigerbob unifies the work of Gossamer Rozen under the banner of their signature tiger head, a logo originally designed for their tattoo practice, which has since been iterated in the form of illustrations, sculptures, fiber art, and digital collectibles.

Designed primarily for knitted textiles, the distinct square shapes of the tiger motif allow the artist to resize, adjust, and reinterpret the Tigerbob tiger head in a multitude of designs that transcend medium - from pixel art to knitting pattern.

The Tigerbob motif is also realized in a hand-drawn illustrative style and a soft sculpture form.

 

 

BRAND HISTORY

With roots in old world craft and an appreciation for fiber art, Tigerbob was preceded by Gossamer Rozen’s namesake brand that debuted in 2020. The initial collection of a dozen pieces were handmade, one of a kind garments constructed from collected vintage and antique textiles. 

Tigerbob continues the dedication to craft, handmade, and one-of-a-kind by producing low-edition, high-quality cashmere knitwear inspired by Gossamer’s own venture into hand-loomed garments created on their vintage knitting machine. 

 

 

GOSSAMER ROZEN

Founder of GROZEN FA LLC and Tigerbob, Gossamer Rozen is a nonbinary, femme, transgender, Filipino and African-American fine artist and tattooer. They have been creating work professionally since 2008, exploring a variety of media including illustration, tattooing, and fiber art. 

An alum of Massachusetts College of Art and Design (2012), Gossamer is mostly self-taught in illustration, fashion, and tattooing, and has a formal art education in sculpture. Gossamer’s sculpture explorations focused on hand-sewn garments, plush toys, and ornaments which stem from childhood interests in fashion, video game, and toy design. 

Gossamer's work primarily explores their identity and heritage, drawing inspiration from East Asian contemporary art and folklore, mythology, religion and spirituality, and old world textiles. Learn more about the artist here.