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Andy Golub, a body painting artist, and his model, Karla Storie, were arrested in Times Square and charged with public lewdness. The charges were dismissed when Golub agreed to only work with fully nude models at night and that his model wear a below low the waist undergarment.
Public nudity in New York is legal as long as it is part of a performance, exhibition or show. The topless nude women of Times Square are known as “desnudas”. They parade around in thongs with painted breasts and pose with tourists and get money in return. Needless to say, the Mayor Bill de Blasio and others are not too happy with the situation.
On the flip side of the opportunistic ladies of Time Square are the serious artists whose motivation is the beauty of the human body and the art of body painting.
Exploring the Art of Body Painting
A Fine Artist of Body Painting
Johannes Stötter is an artist and a musician who creates fine-art-body paintings. He derives his inspiration from nature, as you can see in his work. He is a fully autodidactic artist who stands alone in the art of body painting by developing his own unique techniques. I love watching his magical videos showing his art come to life, only to reveal itself as human bodies – it is so mesmerizing!
The first time I saw images of body paintings was in 2012, at the Scope of Art Miami 2012, while I was covering it for Dig This Design. I fell in love with Roberto Edwards Cuerpos Pintados Experimental Workshop project, where he marries the art of body painting with performance art and photography. This is a collaboration of 100 painters and models who explore using the body as a landscape and a three-dimensional canvas.
Body painting also represents social mores regarding nudity and exhibitionists use it to protest a point. However, there are still those skeptics that do not see it as a true art form. As the creator of Dig This Design, I am always in search of out of the box thinking and these artists, in my opinion, are true to the art world by creating art their way as individuals spreading visual pleasure to their audience.
Images Courtesy of Canva.
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About the Author: Patricia Davis Brown
