Artist Statement - Eileen Nestor

My Henri Rousseau inspired shoes, “A Walk Through the Vibrant Jungle”, were created to catch your eye. Rousseau is a well known French artist and his works primarily consist of animal-life and jungle-themed work. When researching artists and looking at the different styles that each artist had, I became drawn to Rousseau’s work. My shoes heavily reflect his paintings and you can see this on both sides of each shoe. On the inside of both shoes I took different styles of leaves, trees, and plants and put them together to help create a jungle feel. On the outside of the right-footed shoe, you see a set of eyes staring back at you. A large cat is hidden within the jungle. He is appearing to be coming out of the darkness to take a look at what is lurking nearby. The cat has Rousseau’s style of animal eyes and the smooth texture that he had in nearly all of his paintings. An unbloomed, yellow flower adds a pop to the shoe and you’ll see these subtle pops of color in many of Rousseau’s pieces. Moving to the other shoe, you’ll see a tiger coming out from the back-end of the shoe. The tiger was directly inspired by Rousseau’s “Tiger in a Tropical Storm”. It’s body is hidden behind leaves, branches, and trees and appears to be ready to attack. Bright colored orange fruits and red flowers add pop to the shoe once again, adding to the vibrant jungle. The blue and pink ombre background will also send you into a mystical feeling as you walk through the jungle.

Key elements:

• Smooth texture- Rousseau used a smooth texture in his work and made it appear very pastely and less detailed

• Pops of color- flowers, oranges, and other plants were used to catch the viewer's eye

• Cat on the right shoe - main eyecatcher, animal of the jungle, strong eyes, always being watched

• Cat coming from the back of shoe- shows the dangers of the jungle, animals are strong, don’t know when they’re coming

• Background- the colors create a foggy feel, what's behind the fog?, mystical feel, don’t know what's behind it

Symbolism- The pink and blue background represents the mystery and beauty of the jungle. We don’t know what lurks within and amazing animals and creatures can be found.