Welcome to a Fantasy World of... Cardboard?

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Imagine a room with retro relics like a vintage video camera, a manual typewriter and an old bottle of Moonshine. Now imagine that the room—and everything in it—is entirely made of cardboard.

This is a Los Angeles-based installation called “The Artist’s Room,” where sound is layered over a cartoonish fantasy world created from old cardboard boxes. It includes the plinking of an upright piano and the strumming of an acoustic guitar. There’s even an old-fashioned pay phone in a cardboard phone booth and an antique radio that gets tuned to different languages using cardboard pliers.

This is the work of an art collective called Dosshaus, founded by L.A.-based artist David Connelly.

"Everybody knows what it’s like to be a kid and have that big cardboard box," says Connelly. "Either a refrigerator box or a TV box,  and it can become anything. It’s a castle. It’s a rocket ship. It’s a race car. It’s a fort."

At his studio in Ventura, Connelly uses cardboard to create cartoon-like worlds, breathing new life into an object people typically throw away.

People donate recycled cardboard boxes to the artists. Connelly then strips off the labels and tape, whips out his box cutter and hacksaw, and transforms the cardboard into everyday items, which he paints using shades of black and white.

"I just like working with cardboard. I like the way it works. I like the way it fights you. It doesn’t necessarily want to be anything but a box," explains Connelly. "But if you can work with it and you can work within its limitations, it will allow you to let it become something completely different."

Collaborating with artist Zoey Taylor, Connelly made lots of objects like this for a life-size installation called "The Paper Thin Hotel"  in L.A. last year. Every detail was made using cardboard, paper, tape and glue—from ashtrays to light fixtures to the clothes the artists wore while moving around inside the installation. The end result feels like  walking into a two-dimensional, black and white world.

"I like the idea of subverting people’s sense of reality," says Connelly. "Every single piece I make is all about shifting your perspective, even if it’s just for a moment."

Conelley's latest work can be seen at a new show at L.A.'s Corey Helford Gallery. His pieces explores the theme of explosions, with creative explorations bursting out from the wall.

Dosshaus also has pieces in a show called "Dress Rehearsal" at the Oceanside Museum of Art through Jan. 19, 2020. It includes examples of wearable paper clothing, as well as sculptures arranged as an installation to create the feeling that the viewer is backstage at a theater performance.