Lisa Milroy

Shoes

1985

Not on display

Artist: Lisa Milroy born 1959
Medium: Oil paint on canvas
Dimensions: Support: 1746 × 2265 × 56 mm (unframed)
Transit frame: 1918 × 2433 × 160 mm (not ISPM15 compliant)
Collection: Tate
Acquisition: Presented by Charles Saatchi 1992
Reference: T06532

Display caption

In all her object paintings, Milroy presents things in their most characteristic profile, side on or from above, depending on the objects concerned. They are alienated from any context, set against a neutral, most frequently white ground. This absorbs the shadows and contrasts with the objects' three-dimensionality, allowing an ambiguity in the viewer's relation to the object. They can be seen equally as placed on the floor or hung vertically on a wall. Our perception of them as objects diminishes as our appreciation of their abstract qualities and their serial ordering increases.

Gallery label, September 2004

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Technique and condition

Painted in artists oil paints on cotton duck canvas stretched onto a strainer. The canvas was sized with an unpigmented synthetic copolymer resin emulsion before painting.

The Spectrum artists' oil colours are thinned with turpentine for the thin initial drawing and mixtures of turpentine and linseed oil for the main painting. In correspondence with the artist, 22 January 1994, Milroy described the process of painting: 'Painting first drawn in with very dilute paint in turpentine. Two more layers covering surface before painting is finished, linseed oil increasingly added to the turpentine and the paint thickening. Completion in one to two days.'

The painting is not varnished or framed and is in good condition.