“25 pairs of shoes in polyester resin, accompanied by annotated stratographic section/enlarged thin sections.” This brief personal statement is all that artist Carrisa Carters offers as insight into her piece Outcrop.
Outcrop can be commended on many levels, especially for its familiar subject matter, photographical frame of vision, texture, and overall arrangement. These elements complement one another to produce visual contrast as well as illustrate an over-arching theme of journey.
A common subject matter can engage an audience, for the sight of an everyday household item sometimes evokes a sense of comfort and familiarity. Sometimes, pieces of art are predicated on abstractions, which may scare or disinterest viewers, especially those with low art IQs or inexperience. However, this was not the case in the simple yet telling collage of Outcrop. Initially, the words Morrell, Vans, and Reef caught my eye, for these are popular brands of foot apparel. People tend to appeal to things that they can identify with, especially a commodity such as shoes; this propensity works in favor of this piece. Many people know that Morrell shoes are for hiking and backpacking,whereas Vans are associated with causal dress or skateboarders. Lastly, many people in California sport the Reef flip-flops. These brands and types of shoes are definitely prevalent on the Stanford campus, thus the artist knows her audience. A viewer might think that these shoes reveal something about the artist.Keep in mind, there are multiple images of these shoe products, so her choice to select these brands or types of shoes is deliberate.
Next,the artist strategically manipulates viewers’ frame of vision to evince the piece’s theme of journey. The artist zoomed in on many of her photographs in order to draw the audience’s attention to certain parts of shoes. Consequently,people can see only parts of the shoe such as the shoelaces, the cloth or leather upper part of the shoe, the shoe tongues, the logo tag, the sole, the rubber outsoles or shoe bottoms, and the toe thongs of flip-flops. The people can understand the theme from these small windows of vision when they see the shoes’ wear-and-tear and their dull fading colors. These shoes are no longer new and inexperienced, so to speak, but they are old and worn. Essentially, the shoes have been through some things. Furthermore, I believe that seeing the whole shoe would be distracting whereas the small frame of vision forces the viewer to concentrate and to contemplate the artist’s intentions.
Returning to the content of the artwork, I attribute the piece’s texture to its shots of shoe bottoms. Though the collage is made up of four thin plastic panels, the textures within the images give Outcrop a third dimension. The rough, rugged shoe bottoms contrasts with the smooth upper part of the shoes, the part that secures the foot. The bottom is the dirty part of the shoe that everyone disregards, while the top part of the shoe is the main attraction. In fact, the images show gum and dirt stuck to the bottom of the shoes. Also, the visual experience incites a sense of touch, for one knows how the bottom of a shoe would feel if it the shoe were present. This stimulation of tactile senses makes the piece more engaging. As the outsoles become worn down from continuous use and time, the rubber ridges and bumps onthe bottoms of the shoe become smooth, once again illustrating journey.
The arrangement of the four modular panels in a square finally solidifies the theme. If viewers start on the left side of the square, they will see the upper parts of the shoe from a bird’s eye view. As their eyes move from panel to panel, around the rectangular collage, they will notice how the images display different angles of the shoe. And as we move around the collage, viewers seemore side angles of the shoes until they meet the dirty rugged bottom of the shoes. In the middle of the four-panel square arrangement, there is an open space of wall, which gives the eyes a relief from what could be seen as a busy collection of pictures. Among somewhat daunting abstract works of art, Outcrop not only demonstrates the theme of journey but also gives the Design Unbound art exhibit balance between the recognizable and the very abstract.
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