Nude Art, Shocking?

I am a figurative artist. Throughout my career, I have always been drawn to painting people; capturing their personalities, bodies, and stories through portraiture. I will not always strictly hold to that subject matter exclusively, but it has predominantly captured my attention so far, which is interesting because I am also a fierce environmentalist and an animal lover at heart. (I will write more later about my inner struggle with all of the inherent incongruencies there.)

Most of the figures that I draw and paint are female. It is no secret that I am a lover of women. As Tom Jones so eloquently put it, “Women and girls rule my world.” Seriously though, I worship the Goddess, especially Gaia, Mother Earth. She is the deity that I pray to and her creative energy feeds my soul. The essence of Shakti intoxicates me like sweet perfume. Femininity calls to me like the irresistible voices of the Sirens, and I am drawn in like a moth to a flame. I love everything about women: their physique, their complexity, their minds, their hearts, their compassion, and their souls. I want to celebrate and elevate women. I am a hardcore feminist, and I’m also sex-positive, and pro free expression; which are all sometimes contradictory. As a trans-masculine individual, I am highly aware that all women don’t fit into nice neat categories of certain idealized bodies, looks, intellect, demeanor, sexualities, gender identities and/or class stature, a fact that I very much enjoy and celebrate. The vast cornucopia of unique, irreverent, open-minded, outspoken, assertive and self-empowered women of every color and variety, delights and entertains me to no end, and of course, be not mistaken, I also do appreciate the many great and humble feminist men in the world. However, I most often find myself painting and drawing women that I am attracted to, for no other reason than personal preference, although I occasionally deviate from that to make certain statements.

Mixed media drawing

Mixed media drawing

It’s very interesting, the variety of reactions I see as people are first exposed to all of the nudity in my work, especially in a place like the Utah Arts Festival. First and foremost, I really appreciate it when I get to see a change in the faces of some of the viewers as they instantaneously glow with a sense of awe and wonder at their first glance at my artwork. They like and appreciate the way that I capture the figure in a unique style, utilizing different techniques that give each piece a meaning deeper than flesh alone, (which is in and of itself already a profound miracle. These magnificent bodies that we walk this planet in deserve to be immortalized through artwork.) They bring their children in up close and say, “Look, it’s the human body. Isn’t it beautiful?” They are overcome by the beauty and wonder of the figure as a timeless and endless subject matter for artists throughout the ages. From the early raw and primitive artwork of indigenous cultures, to the (often Christian) master works of Renaissance, Baroque, and Rococo, to the Impressionist and Abstract works from Europe that revolutionized the art world, to the melting pot of genres in Contemporary art all over the world, the figure has taken a main stage. The people who can appreciate this kind of artwork and see it with clear eyes untainted by shame or judgment about the human body are my favorite audience to show to, and I’m so happy when one of my pieces finds new home with them.

In Utah, about 10% of the audience is of that nature, the other 90% is a little bit different. A large majority of the people at the festival walk by and after a quick glance, they immediately turn their heads away, not wanting to take in anymore. Of course my artwork is not going to be everyone’s cup of tea and I don’t expect it to be, but I do suspect that cultural and religious shaming of the naked body plays a part in that common response. Sometimes parents will go as far as to shield their children’s eyes from the artwork, saying “don’t look” or “that’s nasty.” The human body is “nasty?” Sometimes I get a group of school children walk by and all in unison they scream “Ewwwwe!” which is quite hilarious to me. Then there are the groups of horny teenage boys that linger in my booth a little longer than others, grinning, whispering and pointing as if they’ve never seen a nude female before. I’m glad that my artwork wherein the female figure is glorified vs. exploited as it is in the porn industry, can be some of their first exposure to nudity. And then there are the viewers who are seemingly immature adults that and crack a joke, point and laugh before passing by. This seems to me to be another defense mechanism against their own internalized shame and guilt about nudity that they have not overcome yet.

A common reaction from all of these groups of people however is, “Wow, you’re local? From Utah? That’s awesome!” Who knew that an unapologetically radical, queer, eccentric artist like me would be born and raised in the most conservative state in the USA? It’s as if God placed me here intentionally to help open the minds of the resident sheeple, or at least to offer them a contrast. I’m not the only one. There are a lot of talented artists in Salt Lake City’s counter culture in the musical, literary, visual and performance arts that are making a huge impact here in so many ways. I’m honored to be one of the ones showing this kind of art to the people of Utah, a place where I stand out as different. Regardless of the variety of reactions I receive, my artwork makes an impression on each viewer’s conscious and unconscious mind. I believe that part of that impression is the unspoken energy that radiates from each art piece; my pure intention behind it to capture beauty, stories, and personalities, to normalize and demystify the naked human body, and to promote peace, love, and equality between the sexes and all beings. Thank you for taking the time to look. Without you the viewer, I am just a tree falling in the forest with nobody to hear me.