Sarah Muirhead Scottish, b. 1987
Foot Portrait 2, 2025
Acrylic on wood panel
21 x 29.7 cm
8.3 x 11.7 in
8.3 x 11.7 in
'I grew up looking at classical paintings and sculptures of feet being crucified, washed adoringly or anchoring the protagonist in various paintings where bare feet represented strength, vulnerability, sexuality or...
"I grew up looking at classical paintings and sculptures of feet being crucified, washed adoringly or anchoring the protagonist in various paintings where bare feet represented strength, vulnerability, sexuality or impoverishment. I see them as individually as I see faces and I think we have very reductive, binary conversations about them now as either objects of fetish or slightly off-putting, neglected, functional body parts. The feet pictured in these paintings belong to one of my closest friends and are significant both because she is an object of my affection, a dancer who expresses herself through this part of herself and someone I have exchanged thoughts with about obsession and devotion. I would like to continue isolating this body part because I think feet take on a slightly new meaning this way and I've been painting them as I would a still life or another beautiful object. I'd like them to feel like devotional paintings and for anything more to be inferred by the inclination of whoever is looking at them. They are my record of little moments of attention. The moments that stay with you like scent or music."