Following in the long established Pop art tradition of bringing depictions of everyday objects into art museums, CJ Hendry has drawn images of Hermès scarves folded into flowers, Chanel No5 perfume bottles made of flower petals, nails or balloons, and Hermès bags dipped into black paint, and these large photorealistic drawings inspired by consumer products have quickly found a celebrity clientele (including Kanye West and Pharrell).

Up to now she had only created monochromatic art works, but for a new pop-up exhibition in Hong Kong, in collaboration with Christian Louboutin, the New York-based Australian artist finally embraced color and used her photorealistic skillset to render blobs of thick oil paints with colored pencil, referencing her inability to work with messy oil paint because of an Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder.

“This is the first time I’ve ever used color in my practice. It’s both invigorating and challenging,” the artist quips.

Hendry had already featured Louboutin’s high heels, most notably in The Trophy Room, a series that immortalized iconic objects by dipping them in bronze before they became the focus of her sketches. For this show, her first official collaboration with Louboutin, she created a series of drawings including the color red, in homage to the shoemaker’s famous colored soles. To create the photorealistic renderings she uses 10-15 shades of each color per drawing.

One of the highlights of the three-day exhibition was the interactive color room where guests could draw on blank walls with wax crayons in the shape of colorful Louboutin‘s So Kate heels.

“There is something I love in her work that is very playful and you can feel the artisanship,” Louboutin stated. “Some artists now are quite industrial in their approach but in her work you almost find a patina, a handcraftsmanship in the way she uses colors. But it’s more our complete differences, which make it interesting — to have a point of view that is not like yours is nice. It is engaging and enriching.”

“There is something I love in her work that is very playful and you can feel the artisanship,” Louboutin stated. “Some artists now are quite industrial in their approach but in her work you almost find a patina, a handcraftsmanship in the way she uses colors. But it’s more our complete differences, which make it interesting — to have a point of view that is not like yours is nice. It is engaging and enriching.”