Diamond Dust Shoes by Andy Warhol

Andy Warhol’s “Diamond Dust Shoes” is produced in an intriguing way, a way which enables the viewer to understand the painting critically.  Andy Warhol uses a photograph of women’s shoes, then silk-screens them on to canvas, painting over with polymer paint, and lastly he covers the surface with “diamond dust”.  Warhol combines the everyday, cheap, commercial way of production, silk screening, with the fantastical, expensive, rare “diamond dust” coating.  Warhol blows a negative black and white image of women’s shoes, a tribute to his past, onto his canvas, then saturates his image with black and colored polymer and acrylic paint, through the silk screening process.  This method of engendering the image comes from Warhol’s days in advertising and his love for fashion. 

The silk screening process is one mainly used to transfer an image onto t-shirts and fabric.  It creates an image that is easily remade and very inexpensive to create, a prime example of mass-reproduction.  This is also a form of creation that separates the artist from their piece it transforms the artist into a manufacturer.  This is the type of relationship Warhol promoted in his works, he wished to be “a machine” and subtract his own human presence from the art.  Therefore, “Diamond Dust Shoes” expresses these two ideas of mass-reproduction and disassociation with the artist, through being a silk screen.  Yet, Warhol then adds his own glamorous touch to the piece, by dusting it with glass shavings, or “diamond dust”.  In a sense this transforms the piece into a self-portrait, a combination of commercialism and the manufactured with a glitzy, larger-than-life touch, a perfect image of Warhol himself.