Page 32 - Issue 3 xxxposure WIP

What inspired you to start creating your sneaker
masks?

It all started during the last years of my degree, when I was studying
Fine Arts in Madrid. Some of you could remember the Tumblr app, well,
at that time around 2012-2015 this app was an immense source of
inspiration and artistic content, also homoerotic. I spent my days
consuming images non-stop and saving many so I could work with
them later. This is when I begin to find a type of image that attracts my
attention and makes me feel something intense inside. Guys wearing
sports clothes, Air Max Nike sneakers, industrial or hood environments,
chains, tribal tattoos, dangerous breed dogs. An aesthetic world of
characters opened in front of me to which I wanted to belong, because
in part I already felt like them. So I started collecting all the information
and content I could, to be able to do the final art project of my degree on
this whole culture of fetish for sportswear and sports shoes, from a
homoerotic perspective. This is when I discover some artists who work
with the same sneakers as
a means to create wearable
pieces, like 'Sports Militia
London'.

I thought that the 'act' of
having a sneaker on your
face is iconographic in
itself for this fetish sector,
so what better than
transforming the sneakers
into a mask tied to the face?
Exactly, nothing better than
that! And I started making
my own pieces with some
old Nike Tn’s. I never
thought nor was it my
intention to produce or
create all the models that I
have made so far, it started
as something very small
and symbolic, only for
exhibition.