Naked Truth
Naked Truth: Figure as Form and Spirit
It is just short of overwhelming to think about the development of the human race over the last few thousand years, and when it comes down to it, evolutionists and creationists alike will concede that a human being’s existence, in the vastness of everything that is possible, is indeed something miraculous. Most of us rarely think about ourselves in this way. We don’t see ourselves as incredible entities, fragile beings that through our intelligence, developed to survive this passage of time. We overlook the essence of what it means to be human so easily. We collect things, relationships, debts, and dollars. We more rarely collect ideas and articles of lasting significance, but that happens as well. It isn’t that we should discount all that we amass; far from it. These are integral aspects of our survival. Our bodies do not equip us with much to this end: no fangs to secure prey, no claws to aid in our defense, no fur to insulate in cold. We are vulnerable without our collections. But the truth of it is, as we stack up our possessions into neat little protective barricades, we cover ourselves; we bury our humanity in an effort to achieve security. So it becomes paradoxical: our very nature inhibits us from examining our very nature. We make it impossible to see the very thing we are fighting to protect; the stripped down version, the vulnerable thing, the naked truth.
Fortunately, since the barriers first started to go up, there have been artists working to tear them down to give us; even for the briefest of moments; the opportunity to find truth. Standards in dealing with the body have ranged from the simplest depiction of outlines on cave walls and idealized marble sculptures to sensual romantic portraits and highly sexualized advertisements. The truth of the human condition has been argued to be both objective and subjective, and this is why the human form is the most ancient of all artistic subjects;and arguably the most controversial. For as long as there have been those who wish to explore the human figure, there have been those who wish to cover it, and thus defiance becomes an element inherent in its portrayal. It is a subject that raises political controversy, forces reflection, soothes the soul, and ignites passion. It is a form that ranges in shape, color, and size with endless potential for abstraction yet simultaneously demanding of exact replication. Naked Truth: Figure as Form and Spirit brings together a collection of contemporary works from both emerging artists and established masters that explore this range of interpretation in celebration of the human body.
Daniel Albrigo uses soft, romantic lighting for his paintings, but he opts for a non-traditional use of the figure. In Glamorous Glue, Albrigo alternatively suggests that the sensuality comes not from the nude woman, but from the shape of her feet, and in Lepus, he sprinkles a map of the constellation over his masked subject, raising the figure itself to cosmic status. A.S. Ashley took molds of his own hands for his mixed media piece Venus de Hey Zeus, perhaps in reference to the development and martyrdom of both the artist and his subject over the ages. The juxtaposition of Christian iconography like the cross and fish with a two-dimensional depiction of a classic Roman sculpture infuses the piece with a deliberate tension. Barbara Berk’s political video installation is a critique that boldly mocks standard conceptions of naked women, objectification, and censorship. The softness of Leslie Brown’s cool colored pastels conveys a deep sense of spirituality. There is a consistency in the pallor of her skin and the coolness of her liquid surroundings, the position of her body suggesting fluidity of motion and the hypnotic sound of quiet waves; the viewer senses that what keeps the woman afloat is her soul, that what gives her breath is from something completely intangible.
William Catling’s sculpture bestows the human spirit with the gift of flight by winging his abstractions of the human form, but rather than suggest an actual ability, Catling focuses on the hope and potential through the smooth, closed eyes and the earthiness and elongation of the body. Davis and Davis employ antique dolls to amplify nostalgia and whimsicality, the brightly colored plastic accents enhancing the playfulness of the photographs that utilize the timelessness of imagination and transience of toys. Linsley Lambert’s very traditional oil painting Apotheosis is unsettling as her nude, male subject embraces a squirming puppy in delight. The absence of a background enhances the dreamlike intimacy between the viewer and the subject, making the viewer an unwitting conspirator in this unorthodox action.
Laura Larson’s sculptural installation treats the abstracted female figure as a decorative object framed in fanciful colors or gilded metallic, the overlaid etched glass casting delicate shadows. Mahoney’s porcelain sculpture highlights femininity in the abstracted form of a kneeling woman with pastel colors and flower petals. For all the fragility of color and materials, the sculpture commands a surprising weight that embodies the female spirit. Retired master Herb Olds’ mixed media piece is fraught with emotion, the stark, charcoaled outline of a woman collapsed in fetal position offset by a heavy presence of interlaid, independent images.
Pathé begins his study of the human experience with the study of the human body, but allows for malleability both in his subject’s pose and in his layering of materials. He playfully intertwines colorful oils on Plexiglas to create a dreamlike quality and evanescence that softens and sharpens throughout the piece, much like how elements of a dream may come in and out of focus. Darren Saravis questions the impersonality of the figure by hiding the women’s faces and using their bodies as idealized sculptural elements while simultaneously projecting their own stories as shadows across their bodies. The models pose, but not in recumbence, imparting a sense of tension; a dynamic sort of balance that relies on the energy of the figure itself to offset the dichromatic palette, underscoring ideas of subject and shadow, intimacy and impartiality. Joseph Todorovitch paints in a traditional style, but the subject is contrived; he renders his model;an imperfect, robust woman;from memory, with a moving softness.
The pieces rely heavily on their given media to communicate each artist’s interpretation of the human form, and the span is encouraging in its diversity. For with each representation, we are reminded that, although the human form itself is timeless as an artistic subject, each figure is unique, and each model is her own entity. The diversity is a reminder that truth is objective in its existence, and its rendering a beautifully crafted subjectivity, and we are grateful for the opportunity, for the briefest of moments, to be invited into someone else’s understanding, to be shown how to break down the barriers, how to discover the stripped down version, the vulnerable thing, the naked truth.
Danielle Baron
It is just short of overwhelming to think about the development of the human race over the last few thousand years, and when it comes down to it, evolutionists and creationists alike will concede that a human being’s existence, in the vastness of everything that is possible, is indeed something miraculous. Most of us rarely think about ourselves in this way. We don’t see ourselves as incredible entities, fragile beings that through our intelligence, developed to survive this passage of time. We overlook the essence of what it means to be human so easily. We collect things, relationships, debts, and dollars. We more rarely collect ideas and articles of lasting significance, but that happens as well. It isn’t that we should discount all that we amass; far from it. These are integral aspects of our survival. Our bodies do not equip us with much to this end: no fangs to secure prey, no claws to aid in our defense, no fur to insulate in cold. We are vulnerable without our collections. But the truth of it is, as we stack up our possessions into neat little protective barricades, we cover ourselves; we bury our humanity in an effort to achieve security. So it becomes paradoxical: our very nature inhibits us from examining our very nature. We make it impossible to see the very thing we are fighting to protect; the stripped down version, the vulnerable thing, the naked truth.
Fortunately, since the barriers first started to go up, there have been artists working to tear them down to give us; even for the briefest of moments; the opportunity to find truth. Standards in dealing with the body have ranged from the simplest depiction of outlines on cave walls and idealized marble sculptures to sensual romantic portraits and highly sexualized advertisements. The truth of the human condition has been argued to be both objective and subjective, and this is why the human form is the most ancient of all artistic subjects;and arguably the most controversial. For as long as there have been those who wish to explore the human figure, there have been those who wish to cover it, and thus defiance becomes an element inherent in its portrayal. It is a subject that raises political controversy, forces reflection, soothes the soul, and ignites passion. It is a form that ranges in shape, color, and size with endless potential for abstraction yet simultaneously demanding of exact replication. Naked Truth: Figure as Form and Spirit brings together a collection of contemporary works from both emerging artists and established masters that explore this range of interpretation in celebration of the human body.
Daniel Albrigo uses soft, romantic lighting for his paintings, but he opts for a non-traditional use of the figure. In Glamorous Glue, Albrigo alternatively suggests that the sensuality comes not from the nude woman, but from the shape of her feet, and in Lepus, he sprinkles a map of the constellation over his masked subject, raising the figure itself to cosmic status. A.S. Ashley took molds of his own hands for his mixed media piece Venus de Hey Zeus, perhaps in reference to the development and martyrdom of both the artist and his subject over the ages. The juxtaposition of Christian iconography like the cross and fish with a two-dimensional depiction of a classic Roman sculpture infuses the piece with a deliberate tension. Barbara Berk’s political video installation is a critique that boldly mocks standard conceptions of naked women, objectification, and censorship. The softness of Leslie Brown’s cool colored pastels conveys a deep sense of spirituality. There is a consistency in the pallor of her skin and the coolness of her liquid surroundings, the position of her body suggesting fluidity of motion and the hypnotic sound of quiet waves; the viewer senses that what keeps the woman afloat is her soul, that what gives her breath is from something completely intangible.
William Catling’s sculpture bestows the human spirit with the gift of flight by winging his abstractions of the human form, but rather than suggest an actual ability, Catling focuses on the hope and potential through the smooth, closed eyes and the earthiness and elongation of the body. Davis and Davis employ antique dolls to amplify nostalgia and whimsicality, the brightly colored plastic accents enhancing the playfulness of the photographs that utilize the timelessness of imagination and transience of toys. Linsley Lambert’s very traditional oil painting Apotheosis is unsettling as her nude, male subject embraces a squirming puppy in delight. The absence of a background enhances the dreamlike intimacy between the viewer and the subject, making the viewer an unwitting conspirator in this unorthodox action.
Laura Larson’s sculptural installation treats the abstracted female figure as a decorative object framed in fanciful colors or gilded metallic, the overlaid etched glass casting delicate shadows. Mahoney’s porcelain sculpture highlights femininity in the abstracted form of a kneeling woman with pastel colors and flower petals. For all the fragility of color and materials, the sculpture commands a surprising weight that embodies the female spirit. Retired master Herb Olds’ mixed media piece is fraught with emotion, the stark, charcoaled outline of a woman collapsed in fetal position offset by a heavy presence of interlaid, independent images.
Pathé begins his study of the human experience with the study of the human body, but allows for malleability both in his subject’s pose and in his layering of materials. He playfully intertwines colorful oils on Plexiglas to create a dreamlike quality and evanescence that softens and sharpens throughout the piece, much like how elements of a dream may come in and out of focus. Darren Saravis questions the impersonality of the figure by hiding the women’s faces and using their bodies as idealized sculptural elements while simultaneously projecting their own stories as shadows across their bodies. The models pose, but not in recumbence, imparting a sense of tension; a dynamic sort of balance that relies on the energy of the figure itself to offset the dichromatic palette, underscoring ideas of subject and shadow, intimacy and impartiality. Joseph Todorovitch paints in a traditional style, but the subject is contrived; he renders his model;an imperfect, robust woman;from memory, with a moving softness.
The pieces rely heavily on their given media to communicate each artist’s interpretation of the human form, and the span is encouraging in its diversity. For with each representation, we are reminded that, although the human form itself is timeless as an artistic subject, each figure is unique, and each model is her own entity. The diversity is a reminder that truth is objective in its existence, and its rendering a beautifully crafted subjectivity, and we are grateful for the opportunity, for the briefest of moments, to be invited into someone else’s understanding, to be shown how to break down the barriers, how to discover the stripped down version, the vulnerable thing, the naked truth.
Danielle Baron
