God Save the Ready Made

Ever since coming in contact with the idea of the ready made it has really stuck with me and in most of my work there is an element of it. Artists like Peter Blake, Joseph Cornell and Jamie Reid influence my work on a regular basis. I feel that to really understand an artist you have to discover their influences and Marcel Duchamp’s influence on the aforementioned artists is difficult to miss. To take the readymade further I feel it needs to come from different people and put into different places/contexts. It would be very easy to emulate Duchamp but I try to apply his ideas to my life which in itself makes it something different. For example in my exhibition I am showing a pair of scruffy Reebok Classics just as they are in a deep set box frame and sign my name next to them to make it blatantly obvious that I am showing it as a piece of art. My vision for it is that it confuses some people but others are intrigued by it. It will provoke different feelings in different people as British people will all have a personal relationship with the iconic shoes, good or bad.