| December
18, 2004
This
is one of the latter pieces in the series, and it shows a smarter
sense of composition and style. I think it happens to look better
than most of the others because of this.
The
title Gallery Exposure is one of those obvious puns, and a little
self-aware at that. I wasn't trying to be jokey or childish, but
instead point the finger back at the audience. Living near a frat-boy-dominated
university accounted for most of this, and I fully knew that the
college crowd would never find any artistic merit in these portraits.
They'd just howl at all the Hot Chicks.
There
was also an eye on the campus art community, and the greater art
world in general. Pop art and fashion photography is looked down
upon by many in these communities; they aren't pure or pumped full
of meaning, or something. I suspected then, and still do today,
that a level of dishonesty was at play.
Nude
portraits are a staple of fine art, but we are taught to not accept
them in any sexual terms; certainly not the way the fashion world
does. But this attitude is false. It is almost as if we bestow the
mantle of "art" on something that is emotionally detached
from us. "Art" has become nothing but Puritannical stale
pastry.
Is
it acceptable to paint nudes if they are overweight? If we shun
modern standards of beauty, how does that make us enlightened? It
only reveals repressive ignorance. Those portraits of the Renaissance
were the standards of beauty. And the young men who painted them
were anything but detatched.
All
these thoughts stayed with me, and inspired the creation of these
portraits. You may impose whatever "artistic" merit you
wish. |
