Connor Ovenden-Shaw is The Artist Known As Foot. Their creative practice is a unique combination of textile art, wearable art, personal introspection and personal experiences.
When asked to define their work, Connor – or Foot as they are commonly known – replies that they are neither a ‘maker’ or a ‘designer’.
“Almost neither? My artistic practice is intrinsically intertwined with my textile pieces, I am an artist first.
“Though textiles have always been on the outskirts of my [art] practice, during the Pandemic lockdown I fell deeply into my love with clothing my own body and so it became my primary medium,” they explain.
WHERE IT ALL BEGAN …
Foot/Connor says that they have been fascinated by embroidery for a long time but that it was the lock-downs during the Covid-19 pandemic that enabled them to ‘self-teach’ themselves how to sew and construct clothing, and then to eventually launch a garment-focused brand.
“The Artist Known As Foot, or Foot, is not really a brand,” they explain. “It is the name I put to my creations, Foot is my name as an artist, though the lines between Foot and Connor blur every day.
“At its core, the stories and messages I put into my textile works are about my experience of living in a bigger body and the unique perspective that it offers, in all the positive and negative experiences that presents.”
Foot/Connor is a non-binary queer artist who works with textiles, photography and performance art. Their art practice is described as an “absurdist take on gender identity, sustainability and beauty standards”.
They have had a number of exhibitions of their soft sculptural art works, including solo exhibitions Patchwork Renaissance at C & H Gallery in Hoppers Crossing in 2022, and Content Warning: Queer, Fat, Sexy at Wyndham Art Gallery in 2023.
WHAT IS ‘THE ARTIST KNOWN AS FOOT’?
Foot/Connor says they are inspired by the textiles they work with, collections of various objects and other artists. “[I am inspired by] fellow artists like Vivenne Westwood, Egon Schiele and Rosalie Gascoigne, [I like] dipping into many mediums,” they say.
This varied range of inspirations can be seen in the garments of Foot/Connor; you can see lettering, textural flowers, head-coverings, patchworked fabrics and recycled materials.
For Foot/Connor, the brand’s concept is both psychological and personal: “[The concept is] a reclamation of fat aesthetics, a friction to the ideal that [certain] fabrics can be too heavy for a larger body, that a larger frame can hold ‘too much’ space, that fat stories are lesser or ‘lazier’.”
The brand’s aesthetic is a fascinating mix that sits “at a four way intersection between historical Tudor, modern queer drag excellence, early French clown costuming and cheap furniture from the 1970’s and 1980’s” they say.
Foot/Connor’s use of mixed media is driven as much by a sense of reuse and sustainability, as it is by artistic conception.
“I exclusively use second-hand materials, down to threads. I am very particular about piecing together collages of recycled fabrics as a means to remind both the viewer and the wearer of the mirroring of the social treatment of the earth and fat bodies,” Foot/Connor explains.
Foot/Connor’s fashion is as much a political statement about our current world and their place in it, as it is about clothing as a personal statement.
“[My long term goal for The Artist Known As Foot] is the continued evolution of my own practice and the rise of queer fat voices.”
For more information about The Artist Known As Foot and their previous art, go to www.connorovendenshaw.com, and follow them at @theartistknownasfoot
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