Shoes serve as both a functional and a creative outlet of expression for finding new and interesting ways to modify the shoe taking the medium form of a website.

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Project Statement:

Eleanor’s project is to showcase the idea of choice and identity by using shoes as the bridge between herself and the viewers. Shoes serve as both a functional and a way to express ourselves because it is a choice to wear different clothing articles to represent our identity. She will be focusing mainly on five different types of categories, eco-friendly fashion, nft, pop culture. Each design on the shoe will be inspired by these categories including the material, type of shoe, style, and color choices. The viewers will be able to choose which shoe resonates with them the most. Eleanor wants to bring awareness to recycling materials to wear in order to be conscious of the environment and how it is possible to express yourself even without access to resources or buying expensive brands. She also wants to highlight whether it is stealing art if modifying the logo of Nike's iconic logo is considered stealing and what does that mean for artists that repurpose works or take inspiration from other places. Shoes have even entered the NFT market and Eleanor is curious about viewers' perception of digital shoes whether they are appalled by them or interested. Each shoe is supposed to evoke a different emotion whether its interest or dislike and Eleanor would like to explore the idea of choice and how there are so many different ways to express yourself through shoes.

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Artist Statement:

Eleanor Shum is an Asian American born and raised in Brooklyn, New York. She is influenced by the trends in the digital world including the constant pursuit of individuality that she partakes in social media as an entrepreneur. Social media has taken such an influence on Eleanor’s life because it enables her to share her artwork with online communities. She has been surrounded by the way people dress, focusing on the shoes people wear to present themselves, inspiring her to utilize it as her main concept. To Eleanor, shoes serve as both a functional and a creative outlet of expression for finding new and interesting ways to modify the shoe taking the medium form in drawing (PAINT), websites, and editing platforms.Her works take form digitally using photoshop and procreate in websites to showcase pictures of her work. Eleanor's exploration of identity is reflected by the shoes she wears and the shoes seen on her public platforms including Instagram and Tiktok. The trends shown in social media including pop culture, video games, movies, anime are subjects she is personally interested in that are frequently seen in her artworks.