Box fresh at Enter Gallery this week is a new collection from Jack Stocker - a Brighton-based photographer and graphic designer who off the back of his first collection, already has a successful exhibition and clothing collaboration under his belt.  

In today’s blog, we’re chatting to Jack about his debut collection, The Minimal Sneaker Study – a set of illustrations demonstrating his passion for Nike footwear, and more specifically the Nike Air range.

If you believe that trainers are a work of art – this is the artist for you.

The Minimal Sneaker Study

Clean and minimal, Stocker’s illustrations strip away the detail, forcing the viewer to focus on the basic silhouette and the colours that create these iconic shoes. Stocker reveals a little about what inspired the aesthetic of his Minimal Sneaker Study…  

‘I’ve always been a collector, no matter what I was interested in I would always collect everything and I guess the main thing that I latched on to from a young age was sneakers.’

‘The idea for the collection was sparked after I looked at Paul Huxley. His designs are very minimal and basic, which I liked, so I wanted to use these basic shapes within something that I can relate to.’

Taking shape
When approaching his collection, Stocker says that he was determined to take a different approach to sneaker art, rather than just doing what many other artists before him had done:

‘I didn’t want to be just another illustrator that creates their chosen shoe in a ‘cartoon’ style. Although I appreciate it massively, I wanted to create something different that stuck out.’

Stocker’s approach was to dissect the elements of each of his chosen sneakers, and illustrate them back together using only simple shapes, with swooshes de-emphasised and details taken back to basics.   

Since the exhibition, Stocker has gone on to collaborate with a number of brands, most notably, Jeff Staple of Staple Pigeon, who created a series of t-shirts featuring the sneaker designs.

Sneaky beginnings

It’s interesting that alongside Jack, many artists have begun their careers portraying popular footwear, so we’re excited to see where his career goes from here.

One of Andy Warhol’s first artistic commissions was illustrating shoes for Glamour magazine and Peter Blake has famously added his pop art emblems to a classic pair of Chuck Taylor’s.

Enter Gallery artist – Dave White – has been attributed with pioneering the ‘sneaker art’ movement in 2002. His pop art-inspired oil portraits led to long-term collaborations with Nike, and Brand Jordan. Interesting fact – Dave White is one of only a handful of artists to have his own signature Air Jordan releases.  

Welcome to Enter Gallery Jack Stocker! You can explore his collection of sneaker prints here.