About

16 November–10 December
By appointment only: post@tradegallery.org

Image: Zoe Spowage ‘Untitled’

A new exhibition by Zoe Spowage brings together a collection of her small shoe sculptures. The show’s title is inspired by a comment left on Zoe’s Instagram feed – “Wantttt!!”. This phrase neatly expresses our desire to own something after being visually attracted, and how Instagram and other platforms mix up the languages of products and art.

Her work more broadly takes its cues from theatrical ‘staging’, and prop design – the works reference the painterly ease, speed and economical mark making that is required for the production of stage props.

Shoes and boots feature prominently in her paintings of contorted nude women floating in geometric environments. Boots are often the only thing the women are wearing, which injects the work with a burlesque-ness; although we get the feeling these moments are not for show. Heels are kicked off, a lady reclines in a dreamy otherworld – these moments seem both public and private, perhaps we are voyeurs looking in?

In these sculptures, the language of the paintings are boiled into the basic elements of a shoe – and then warped into pleasing sculptural forms. They contort and start to mimic the flowing shapes of the ladies’ bodies, these sculptural silhouettes are hand cut in wood.

Zoe exhibition features multiple shoes for sale, with different styles on rotation throughout the exhibition, whilst
stocks last.

Each sculpture is £50 and avaliable at the gallery.

Recent exhibitions include:’Paper cuts’ Transition Gallery, ‘Curse of the laughing hand’ Rogue studios Manchester, Losers Gym Nottingham (Solo), ‘Im in love with Rococo’ STCFTHOTS Leeds.

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