Shroud for Cleve, 2010
Busty, 2010
Boodilicious, 2010
Hunk, 2010
Body Builder Legs, 2010
Seduction, 2010
Twotogether, 2010
Hunk, acrylic on canvas, 24" x 24", ©2010Statement
My new work is preoccupied with the perception of the body and its relationship to pattern painting.
In these paintings, I want to come to a new understanding of the body and pattern. What is the body and how do we view it? How do we perceive ourselves? By applying the lessons of pattern and feminist theory, the body becomes an object that defies dimension. In ancient Greek and Roman times, the only bodies worthy of the artist's gaze were gods and goddesses. The Renaissance nude reinvented historical ideals of beauty.
Modern painterly interpretations, from Matisse to Mapplethorpe, have discovered new dimensions to the nude body. This created a new focus or no one focus. In pattern painting, there is no place for the eye to rest. The figure is flattened and removed from traditional Western notions of composition.
The physicality of the world became the physicality of the painting. These new paintings have developed from my earlier “Shroud” series, which was predominately faces, to other body parts and the full figure.
“Deconstructed Body” is about finding a new whole in the fragmentation of the body.