Licorice Shoes

Stretching over two metres in length, Andy Yoder’s Licorice Shoes represents a larger-than-life collision of two prevailing childhood memories. Modelled on the black wingtip Oxfords that his father wore to the office each day, the giant shoes are meticulously coated with licorice in homage to the confectionery that his grandmother kept in her kitchen. Magnifying these intimate recollections into a piece of bold visual theatre, Yoder seeks to examine the impact of domestic environments upon our psyche. ‘Many people take great comfort in the bathroom towels being the same colour as the soap, toilet paper, and tiles’, he explains. ‘It means there is a connection between them, and an environment of order. Home is a place not only of comfort, but of control. This sense of order, in whatever form it takes, acts as a shield against the unpredictability and lurking chaos of the outside world. My work is an examination of the different forms this shield takes, and the thinking that lies behind it. I use domestic objects as the common denominators of our personal environment. Altering them is a way of questioning the attitudes, fears and unwritten rules which have formed that environment and our behaviour within it.’