Artist Statement

What do shoes mean to you? Pleasure, pain, a fashion statement or memory of someone departed? Could they protect your home and ward off evil?

Shoes carry the imprint and memory of their owners and throughout history have been valued beyond their mere worth as an object.

In 2005 I painted my mother Cynthia’s shoes in their original shoe box as I still grieved her loss at age fifteen. Her shoes I could remember her wearing and were a tangible and tactile link to her that I thought if painted, I would be able to part with. I still have her shoes.

Between 2015 and 2017 while undertaking an extended residency at the Oatlands Gaol Residency Program in Tasmania’s Southern Midlands I came across the phenonium of ‘hidden/concealed shoes’, shoes hidden in fireplaces, walls, under floors and in roof spaces is documented, if not fully explained. A practice thought to ward off evil or possibly to ensure fertility and happiness. The oldest shoe was found in Winchester Cathedral in England dating to 1308 and many are in private homes. These superstitions were brought to Australia by immigrants, and shoes, clothing, mummified cats and witches bottles were placed secretly by locals or by ‘cunning folk’ as protection from evil. Symbols (concentric circles, hexafoils and merels) have also been found scratched into timber and stone, all part of the magic invoked to protect the household, to block or trap evil trying to enter through the building’s openings. The Northhampton Museum in England has a collection of more than 15,000 shoes including a database and collection of concealed shoes.                                                                                                            

Painting from life the boots and shoes loaned from historic properties, along with one from under my own Apple Packing Shed, I have combined them with some of the symbols, trying to imagine the faith in the power of this ritual and the security that those people sought.

References to shoes and feet permeate our language. To ‘’start off on the right foot’’  means to make a good start at something, but go back further and you will discover it was considered unlucky to put on your left shoe first. 

It is both fascinating and horrifying the obsession and money spent on shoes, from Imelda Marcos’s personal collection, brand trainers, to collectors of the shoes of the famous. The excess of fashion;2018 Passion Diamond Shoes (USD 17 million made from diamonds and gold).

These paintings of dark dusty mysterious secreted shoes contrast with the extravagant heels and platforms abandoned in opportunity shops.

When considering the ramifications of our footprint/lifestyle on the planet it would be pertinent to consider the waste generated by the fashion industry and how many shoes do you really need?