Tender Feet, 2025 

rehydrated acrylic, India ink and conte on upcycled canvas

48” x 72”

Tender Feet is the title work of an ongoing project investigating a family history of ranching and mining from the perspective of Mikell’s unrelated physical disability. The project takes its name from the colloquial tenderfoot, which describes someone unfamiliar with the adversaries of land-based industry and is often used by ranchers to identify new hires. Following up on the subject material of a solo exhibition of the same name, held last year at the Fifty-Fifty Arts Collective, Mikell intends to locate her disabled body in a familial inheritance of land-based labour industries, investigating who is permitted to be tender, the consequences of removing tenderness from families working in land-extraction industries, and how these extractive relationships to the land were balanced with recreational extraction (fishing). Title works Tender Feet I and II were intentionally installed incomplete when the exhibition opened. Mikell routinely worked during open studio hours on these pieces in the gallery setting.

consistent with Mikell’s practice, this piece is composed entirely of repurposed materials diverted from cycles of disuse, in an effort to mitigate industry waste. As a result, imperfections to the surfaces of frames and canvases are to be expected. Please contact the artist with further inquiries about production.