Unwearable Art: 6 inch black Ouch!
Medium: Australian jade
Dimensions: 200 mm x 60 mm x 170 mm.
Year: 2012
Recently exhibited at the National Zi Gun Bei jade carving exhibition and awards in Suzhou, China.
Exhibited at ArtsPost gallery in Hamilton and Stone and Jewel/Unwearable Art exhibition at the Lightspace Gallery, Academy of Fine Arts, Wellington.
Unwearable Art is the title of a new body of work in progress concerned with the lengths women go to to be attractive. Many of the clothes, shoes and other adornments are often uncomfortable to wear and can be harmful, yet these items are attractive in themselves.
I have a love/hate relationship with high heels. They give height to the wearer, lengthen the leg and accentuate buttocks. They are sexually charged and expected attire for the well dressed. Unfortunately high heels are uncomfortable, often painful to wear and difficult to walk in. The extremely high heels in fashion at present shorten and damage the Achilles tendon and can cramp feet leading to later health issues.
6 inch black Ouch! is a stiletto shoe carved in black jade that drips with appeal with its shiny black surface and sculptural form. An impossible shoe to wear due to the inflexability of the material and the extreme narrowness. There is only one shoe, the other is conspicuous by its absence. On the inner surface the word Ouch! is sandblasted as a logo. This logo has been used on the three sets of shoes produced so far; Topless Ouch! and Carrara Flats Ouch!
Stone is an unforgiving material for a shoe. Hardness, coupled with the teetering height of a stiletto heel, make 6 Inch Black Ouch! and Topless Ouch! truly unwearable.