Gallerie Sakura in Paris had a stunning supervillain exhibit where esteemed sneaker artists from around the world got to create custom sneakers in their own styles to display. @taicustomkicks, an immensely talented sneaker artist from Slovenia, made a pair that was a part of this exhibit and created the magnificent Nike Air Jordan 1 “Tainos” custom sneakers. Let’s take a detailed look.
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@canvvs posted about Tai on their Instagram, sharing a little about this incredible artist and their experience creating this magnificent pair of sneakers for the exhibit. In the post, we learned that Tai started as an artist making custom sneakers for their family before they started taking private commissions, and we learned about how their unique art style was born.
Tai loves to make unique designs and pushes their abilities to the limit to make the best and most artful pair of sneakers they possibly can.
The Nike Air Jordan 1 “Tainos” custom sneakers are the perfect example of that, blending his style with Marvel comics art style to bring Thanos into his artwork in a cohesive way that did justice to both his inspiration and his own art style.
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@taicustomkicks’ art style is a little goofy and weird, distorting images to a point where they are intriguing while also maintaining the essence of the image. You see this art style in comics often, and combining the more cartoonish art style with an image of a supervillain like Thanos was arguably perfect.
The “Tainos” sneakers are a perfect blend of styles, even starting with the name. The sneakers were made using a plain white tumbled leather pair of Nike Air Jordan 1s, allowing for the perfect canvas to create his art. Trying to break apart these sneakers into separate elements would be a crime, but let’s look anyway.
The entire sneaker is white except for the artwork, which is made up of a palette mostly comprised of purples, blues, a touch of red, and a lot of gold and yellow. The image starts on the right with a stunningly rendered portrait of Thanos that is arguably terrifying, with lines and muscles that make it seem real.
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From there, the artwork moves into more cartoonish elements, with everything you can imagine included as a part of the artwork. There is everything from a skull to flowers to golden dollar bills, tentacles, random splashes of colour coming out of people’s eyes, a wonky clock, people with extended necks, caricature-like expressions with broad smiles and large, shocked eyes.
While being a splash of elements, having everything be made up of the colours that make up Thanos’ colour palette makes the entire piece cohesive while still being unique and combining art styles perfectly.
After a successful exhibition this year, it would be interesting to see what Tai creates for his next exhibition and what stunning art they will bring and combine with their style.
