Marloes ten Bhömer’s work consistently aims to challenge generic typologies of women’s shoes through experiments with non-traditional technologies and material techniques. By reinventing the process by which footwear is made, the resulting shoes serve as unique examples of new aesthetic and structural possibilities, while also serving to criticise the conventional status of women’s shoes as cultural objects.
Her research into technology, materials, feet and footwear has resulted in a variety of experimental and conceptual pieces, some of which have been developed into technically sound (wearable) shoes, others which are produced solely as sculptural works. The existence of both directions within her practice generates a layer to the work that comments on the perception of functionality, commerce and production in a larger system. The context within which they sit (in galleries, museums, or in boutiques) challenges the audiences’ preconceptions about the shoe.
Her work is published and exhibited internationally, notably in the Krannert Art Museum in Illinois, Modemuseum in Hasselt, Galerie Lucy Mackintosh Switzerland, Gemeentemuseum Den Haag, Design Museum Holon, Israel, Spring Projects Gallery in London and the Victoria & Albert Museum in London. Ten Bhömer was nominated for the Jerwood Contemporary Makers 2010 and the Brit Insurance Designs of the Year 2009 at the Design Museum London”¨and she has been awarded the Creative Pioneer Programme, Nesta Award, the Crafts Council Development Award”¨and the Startstipendium Fonds BKVB.
Recommended Reading:
*Available to view at the Stanley Picker Gallery during the exhibition
*Beukers, Adriaan and Van Hinte, Ed, Lightness: The Inevitable Renaissance of Minimum Energy Structures. 1951-1998 ISBN-13: 978-9064505607
Gordon, James Edward, Structures: Or Why Things Don’t Fall Down. 1978* ISBN-13: 978-0306812835
Hans, Annette, Karla Black: It’s Proof That Counts. 2010 ISBN-13: 978-3037640845
*Kirkham, Pat, The Gendered Object. 1996 ISBN-13: 978-0719044755
*Lima, Manuel Visual Complexity: Mapping Patterns of Information 2011 ISBN-13: 978-1568989365
Menges, Achim, Material Computation: Higher Integration in Morphogenetic Design Architectural Design 2012 ISBN-13: 978-0470973301
*Quinn, Bradley, The Fashion of Architecture 2003 ISBN-13: 978-1408110584
*Reas, Chandler Casey Form+Code in Design, Art, and Architecture 2010 ISBN-13: 978-1568989372
*Salvadori, Mario, Why Buildings Stand Up: Strength of Architecture from the Pyramids to the Skyscraper 1990 ISBN-13: 978-0393306767
*Scott, Linda M, Fresh Lipstick: Redressing Fashion and Feminism 2006 ISBN-13: 978-1403966865
Spector, Nancy and Taylor, Mark C, All in the Present Must Be Transformed: Matthew Barney and Joseph Beuys 1945-2007* ISBN-13: 978-0892073559
Van Hinte, Ed, First Read This: Systems Engineering in Practice 2007 ISBN-13: 978-9064506437
Wosk, Julie, Women and the Machine: Representations from the Spinning Wheel to the Electronic Age 2001 ISBN-13: 978-0801873133