Lauren Naidoo - interdisciplinary artist, graphic designer & animator
living at the intersection of art and design
naidoolauren18(at)gmail.com

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“DEAL ME IN”
2025-26

Deal Me In (2025) is a collection of 52 playing cards transformed to become an amalgamation of their former compositions and comic book collage. This project consisted of collaging and editing within the original boundaries of the cards, which created unique opportunities to both compliment and juxtapose equally. Ultimately using new imagery working alongside the recognizable symbolism; to create a game for the viewer to decode and interpret connections and overlapping narratives of the cards and their relatives.

My main material was sourced from vintage comic books, giving me the ability to edit through the form of objects, characters, and text. I utilized this material with the aim to create a collection that subverts expectations on what a deck of cards can be by disrupting its forms with compositional play to entice closer inspection. Deal Me In is an attempt to share moments and time with objects and transform a traditional card game into uncovering narrative and promoting a different kind of play that feels both familiar and new. 

Exhibited in 2025, Semantics Cafe (Calgary, AB)
2025, group exhibition at Everything and Then Some, University of British Columbia Okanagan
2025, group exhibtion at A Matter of Time, University of British Columbia Okanagan

Created by collaging comic book materials on playing cards. Analog scans.

My more recent pieces focus on the disruption of familiar imagery through the introduction of darker contexts. By embedding themes of sexuality and violence into recognizable motifs and characters inside the playing cards, I am recontextualizing themes found in comic books to create contrast and tension, prompting viewers to reconsider symbols they would typically accept without question. Comic book imagery is situated within linear, narrative frameworks and often contain implicit or explicit depictions of violence and hypersexualized bodies. When removed from their original context and reassembled through collage, these elements become more confrontational, exposing the underlying themes in contemporary culture.

Created by collaging comic book materials on playing cards. Analog scans.
See more, link to card instagram