the female gesture
Nude with Leaf
‘the female gesture’ is the title of my nude show opening February 6 at The Studio, in Twisp, WA. As is usual when putting together a one-person show, the artist needs to write an artist statement, which is something said on one page about the show’s content, what is behind the work, and maybe a bit about the artist. It is always difficult to write in words what is essentially the task of the work on the walls to portray visually. In the Reading section on the right sidebar, is a copy of the artist statement I wrote to go with the show.
In a short paragraph I can summarize the entire page I wrote: Working with the nude model is a special adventure, but at the same time is no more sacred than working with the still life or the landscape. The difference is it is a human being. But the work is not about the artist and the model as they live their everyday lives among society, so much as it about the two participants and what they have brought to the moment of collaboration together. It is about the individual and universal feelings expressed in the visual image that comes from that collaboration. I hope I did not dance around the issue of sexuality in the statement about the work. What I attempted to say was, although many photographers describe their work with the nude as about shape, form, and light….and that it isn’t about sex….that is impossible. For we are all sexual beings along with all the other aspects of our ‘beingness.’ I described that complete self as a fabric woven of all the threads that make us up. We cannot select one thread or another, shut off one part of ourselves, as though we are made of boxes, some open, some left unopened. The model and the artist have put it all into the work. So the work contains all the feelings it should if the work is successful, and that is what makes it beautiful, and felt strongly by the viewer.