WALK INTO ONE GORGEOUS Emerald Hill conservation house and you'll find yourself confronted by a black giant boot. It towers over you like a menacing tree trunk and when you touch it - yes, this is one artwork you're allowed to touch - something magical happens: your fingers turn the surfaces they touch into gold.

The work titled Your Touch Turns To Gold (2018) is created by artist Anthony Chin out of wood, polyfoam and resin. The boot is a replica of Prince Albert's footwear as seen in the gold leaf-covered Memorial Statue of Albert in Kensington Park. Prince Albert (1819 - 1861) was the husband of Queen Victoria and was responsible for the Great Exhibition of 1851 trumpeting the power and wealth of the British Empire.

Chin's cheeky artwork is a wry commentary on colonialism and "how the English captured and crushed (an act represented by the boot) various peoples around the world to enrich itself (represented by the gold)." The boot is coated with a special paint that reacts to body heat to change its colour to gold - though this is not something the curators necessarily want you to know.