Body Painting
When I was an involved artist in New York in the 60's and 70's I learned a lot about art. There was a French artist known as Yves Klein who covered nude female models with bright blue paint and then dragged them around on a blank canvas.
This gave me the idea for "body painting" live nude models/dancers with a water based dayglo paints and photographing them under UV light.
The poster paint adhered well, but flaked off when models/dancers moved. By experimenting with glycerin added to the paint I came up with a mix which seemed to adhere fairly well. About 25% glycerin added to paint appeared to work quite well.
It turned out that the model/dancers bodies dictated to me what and how to paint. Later on, I would paint the model/dancers and they in turn painted me, which explains photos of two people in this section.
The paint is 50% “day glow” poster paint and 50% glycerin. The glycerin allows for flexibility so that the paint doesn’t “flake” off the models body when they move. The models are lit by “black light” fluorescents and the film is kodak ektachrome slide film which was “pushed” in the lab way beyond it’s ASA rating.
Article Series
- Artwork
- Body Painting
- Hand-Painted Slides
- Kinetic Light
- Liquid Light
- Production