What happens when a painting leaves the gallery wall and takes on a new life? For Belgrade-based artists Sveta Kletina and Evgeni Gertsenstein, the answer lies in Rebirth, an ongoing multidisciplinary project that transforms original paintings into sculptural footwear. Developed through an artistic and personal partnership spanning 18 years, the concept challenges the boundaries between fine art, fashion, and the objects we carry into everyday life.
The process begins with Gertsenstein, whose expressive paintings explore vulnerability, emotion, and the complexities of the human psyche. Kletina, a bespoke shoemaker and footwear designer, responds to these works by extracting sections of the canvas and incorporating them into architectural silhouettes framed with leather. What remains is equally important: the original painting, now marked by the empty spaces where its fragments once existed, becomes a ghost of its former self. Together, the altered canvas and finished shoes exist as interconnected works, each carrying a different part of the same story.
The project’s inaugural collection, Edition I: Liminality, explores the transitional space between opposing states. Black-and-white canvases examine the subtle gradations between darkness and light, while the footwear balances severe minimalism with intricate construction. Even the relationship between the left and right shoes challenges convention. Cut from different areas of the painting, the two are intentionally distinct, connected through their shared origin rather than perfect symmetry.
For Kletina and Gertsenstein, the gallery is only the beginning of an artwork’s existence. Once worn, the shoes introduce movement, human interaction, and new experiences into something previously static. Through Rebirth, the artists propose a different understanding of permanence, where a work of art does not lose its identity through transformation, but continues to evolve beyond its original form.
Fine Art, Painting & Photography EVGENI GERTSENSTEIN @evgenigertsenstein
Footwear Architecture & Bespoke Design SVETA KLETINA @svetakletina