The Shoe Portrait by Leslie Jiménez

The Shoe Portrait I & II

Screenprint, edition of 10 (of each book)

Image size: 6 x 4 in. 

Book dimensions: 7 x 5 x 1 in.

$350       

Leslie Jiménez is a Dominican multidisciplinary artist and illustrator. She graduated from the school of design, Altos de Chavón, and earned a scholarship to continue her training at Parsons, the New School of Design.

Jimenez is deeply connected to her neighborhood and the people living in it. She worries for the inclusion of the uptown community in the arts, specially the kids, in order to expose them and nourish their interest in future artistic practices.

Today’s piece, “The Shoe Portrait”, is a series of a hand-pull screenprint strips that were carefully assembled in hand-made artist books. The two volumes show a collection of anonymous walkers and the shoes they were wearing when Jimenez captured them during her daily commutes in New York City.

The lack of a face in these portraits doesn’t prevent the viewer from understanding the character’s essence and their stories based on a detail as simple as the shoes they wear. The piece teaches the empowering realization of uniqueness through each choice and attributes to the idea of the complexity within every individual and liberation through these decisions.