Red shoes

Comment

Comment by Resident Curator on October 24, 2011 at 6:01pm

Hello again Denis,

I hope you don't construe my earlier comment as a flippant dismissal of artistic appropriation.  Rather than being disheartened by repetitive imagery I see it as a shared visual vocabulary of our time.  I really don’t think we can be original, but I do believe we can be authentic.  By I do admit to being an academic- the shoe fits.

Kristen

Comment by Christine Rossi on October 24, 2011 at 3:32pm

Hi Tony...nice shoes!

Comment by Resident Curator on October 22, 2011 at 9:33am

Duplicating the irrelevant in the 21st C.?  There's nothing new under the sun.

Comment by Resident Curator on October 20, 2011 at 10:36pm

(To Denis) Red shoes are the stuff of fashionistas, fairy tales and popes!

Comment by Resident Curator on October 1, 2011 at 8:55pm

Curator’s Comments:

 

This image no doubt has broad commercial appeal- it’s campy, sexy, classic.  But there seems to be more going on underneath the picture’s immediate allure.  The red on red palette is intensely saturated, by means of a velvety modeled surface.  There is noiresque elegance to the pose, but the extreme cropping also suggests a figure off kilter- ungrounded, per see.  The flesh glows white, with soft warm shadows.  The carnal red drapery in the background seems self-consciously positioned, as if constructing a conventional still life.  It also calls to mind allegorical associations- papal red shoes, and of course the gruesome Hans Christian Andersen fairy tale by the same title.

I am also very drawn to the piece Connected to the Grid.  Quite different in terms of subject matter from The Red Shoes, it nevertheless has a beautiful grittiness.  The black velvety shadows punctuate the worn white and gray wall surface, deflecting a silvery cast.  My eyes travel the twisted path of the black wires, and delight in the celebration of the mundane within a bleak and almost sinister industrial complex.  The idea that we are in fact connected to such daunting apparatus for daily amenities causes one to ponder the connection, if not the source. But aside from the possible conceptual underpinning behind the selection of your subject matter, they are exquisitely posed everyday objects and offer a rich sensory experience for the viewer.

Comment by Luise H. Andersen on May 2, 2009 at 4:14pm

....hotttt.... !!! amazing, you got red hues so right.. against skin..both- sensual.. very!! smiiile.. Luise.

Comment by Stephen Shub on April 9, 2009 at 12:54am

Very sexy. A little different for you, I like it. I'm glad you didn't put her in a swamp. Just kidding.