Créabox by Panda Gin x SIMO: between movement, color and instinct

With Créabox, Panda Gin gives 12 Belgian artists free rein to reinterpret its bottle through their own creative lens.

For this second chapter, we meet SIMO, also known as Simon Mannaerts, a street artist and painter from Antwerp. Nourished by graffiti from a young age, he now develops a practice at the crossroads of painting, drawing and mural art.

His work explores color, movement, silence and the human condition. For Créabox, he translates this universe onto an unusual medium: a bottle of Panda Gin.

Can you introduce yourself in a few words?

My name is Simon Mannaerts, also known as SIMO. I am a street artist and painter from Antwerp, Belgium.

I grew up near Berchem station, where I discovered graffiti at a very young age. The walls quickly became my first canvases, but also my first sketchbooks.

What began as an exploration of shapes, colors and lines has gradually transformed into a practice that today navigates between murals, paintings and drawings.

I have always felt the need to create. For me, it is almost a way of understanding and processing the world around me. I am fascinated by people, movement, psychology and the human condition, and I try to translate all of this through color and image.

Your work has a very recognizable visual identity. How would you define your style today?

I would describe it as something very intuitive and constantly evolving.

Color, movement, or on the contrary, stillness and line are probably the most important elements of my work. But I don't really want to confine it to a specific style.

I am very interested in the human condition and those moments that are difficult to put into words.

This can sometimes give rise to a very energetic image, and other times to something much calmer and more contemplative.

Every artist has their own creative process. How does a new work come to life for you?

It usually starts with an idea, an image, or simply a feeling.

Sometimes, my starting point is very precise. But I often like to leave enough space for unexpected things to emerge during the creative process.

A large part of my work is precisely to discover the work while I am making it.

I can start with a very clear plan and end up transforming everything along the way.

The final work then becomes a kind of dialogue between the original idea, the material, the space, and everything that happens spontaneously during the process.

What attracted you to the Créabox x Panda Gin project?

What attracted me first was the brand's creative and visual universe, as well as its environmental and sustainable approach.

I also appreciated the opportunity to work on something that was completely outside my usual formats.

Can you tell us the story behind the bottle you created for Panda Gin?

For me, this bottle was above all a way to translate my visual language onto a completely different canvas.

I wasn't necessarily looking to tell a specific story, but rather to create a feeling and an atmosphere that match the universe of Panda Gin.

Panda Gin already has a strong visual identity. How did you find the balance between the brand's DNA and your own artistic language?

I think the key was precisely not to try to force the two universes to work together.

The idea was rather to let the two identities coexist naturally.

What is your take on this collaboration with Panda Gin and Créabox?

I really enjoyed this collaboration.

Usually, I don't participate in many projects that are essentially focused on commercial advertising. It was therefore important to me that this collaboration looked above all like a real artistic project, and not simply the application of my work to a product.

That is precisely what I appreciated about Créabox: being able to approach the bottle as a new creative medium.

SIMO x Créabox: a new medium for a visual language in motion

With SIMO, the Panda Gin bottle becomes a field of experimentation.

More than a simple customization, the artist translates their language made of lines, colors, movement and instinct onto it. An approach perfectly consistent with their way of creating: starting from an intention, then letting the work evolve throughout the process.

After Art by Noé, SIMO thus signs the second chapter of Créabox by Panda Gin.

12 artists. 12 universes. One same bottle to reinvent.

Discover SIMO's universe: https://www.simonmannaerts.com/