Face Painting
I have just started work on a series of sixty paintings, using my own face as the canvas. I wanted to do an art project to celebrate my 60th birthday and thinking of the human face
as a blank canvas has always interested me.
From the time I was allowed to use make-up (around fifteen), experimenting with lipstick,
eye shadow and blush has been a daily ritual. My fascination with changing one’s appearance dramatically with make-up has grown over the years, and now that my face is showing its age, I feel compelled to want to change it. I’ve decided that an extreme make-over with paint, making my face into a work of art, is a challenge I’d like to attempt. Recently I have become captivated by photographs of african tribes who use the natural elements of their surroundings to “decorate” themselves. Their faces and bodies become their canvas. They express a primal desire to create art, in a very personal way. It is from these artists that I have received my inspiration.
So, using my digital camera on a tripod at arms length,
I’ll photograph this sixty year old face, transformed with paint,
in sixty different ways.
Wednesday, December 10, 2008
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