About the artwork
Cowboy boots are one of a number of tropes that recur often in my practice. They are often seen in the physiognomies of my sculptures. Decorative details from cowboy boots appear on the backs of them or aspects of their physiognomies grows out of cowboy boots. I am particularly interested in the way that these boots conflate utilitarian masculinity with unselfconscious decorativeness.
They are both incredibly natural, in that they are fabricated from the skin of cows, and incredibly contrived, with their elaborate ornamentation. ‘Boot Camp’ is my most direct celebration of cowboy boots, a glittering, fragile pile of them reconstituted in hand blown glass. There is an enjoyable irony in these most utilitarian and sturdy of footwear rendered in a material that could so easily shatter.
About the artists
Patricia Piccinini is a contemporary artist who is interested in what it means to be alive in the present day. She creates a world somewhere between the one we know and one that is almost upon us. She focuses on the emotional lives of the new creatures that might emerge, along with our relationships with them and with nature.
She is especially interested in things that fall outside of our traditional ideas of normal or beautiful, or that step across the boundaries that we erect between things. How does contemporary technology and culture change our understanding of what it means to be human? What is our relationship with – and responsibilities towards – that which we create. Her world is one of questions rather than answers. Instead of telling the viewer what to think she asks them how they feel when confronted by possibilities.
Patricia has exhibited all over the world, including the Venice Biennale, and in 2013 created the Skywhale for the Centenary of Canberra. Her 2021 exhibition, “A Miracle Constantly Repeated” took place in the abandoned ballroom above Flinders Street Station in Melbourne.