A Take on Nudity in Art
was 8 when I drew my first nude piece. So the shock value it has for me as a professional artist today is little to none. Making two consecutive series is intentionally a social experiment more than it is my personal de stijl. And it’s empowering to hear, see and experience people who appreciate it. It is also interesting how some take it. I get a lot of upfront questions about what I feel when I paint nudes. Certainly those things seem to be more interesting than the art itself.
Nudity has been present in art for just about as long as humans have been creating it. Often homages to fertility and expression of appreciation for the human form. It was a fair game at that point. But times have changed and although the theme is open to consideration during the 21st century, it has grown to be more sensitive and offensive to a few. The premise of complaints revolve around nudity's negative overtones. As a Filipino or even in an Asian environment, artists such as myself, live within the means of theological conservatism. Certainly not my direct market for the boudoir series.
But why am I intentional about this? What am I trying to address?
As how Hilden explained it,
“Each of us has a body and every one of us was born naked, but for a range of complex social reasons, our relationship to our own bodies and the bodies of others have been distorted for centuries.”
Eliciting more questions than ever, my take has been and always will be this: Human forms are beautiful. It can be agitating and revolutionary. In and of itself, just as beautiful as flowers or sunsets portrayed typically on a canvas.
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