Jan Sandek

That big sister of mine. Jan Sandek

I make no excuse for once again featuring the work of Jan Sandek. No other contemporary artist or photographer comes close his ability to daringly capture the beauty of the human form in all its moods and changes. 

Jan Saudek, art photographer and painter, is an holocaust survivor who was born in Czechoslovakia in 1935. His art work represents a unique technique combining photography and painting. Many of his images depict the transition from puberty to adulthood. In his country of origin his work was considered pornographic and oppressed by the authorities. He is now recognized as one of the leading fine art photographers of the 20th century. 

Calling Vietnam

In the heart of Saigon, S&S Art Gallery.

Over the last few weeks my blog has been inundated with page views from Vietnam. An indication that my posts go beyond friends, family and my small island in the Caribbean. 

I would love to hear from my far and wide follows. What attracts you to my work? I welcome your feedback.

Insights: curtesy of lovers, muses and models.

Nude:  Amedeo Modigliani

Valeria Parisi's film, Maverick Modigliani, is narrated from the point of view of his common-law wife. That being one of the reasons why it has been damned by many critics. The New York Times called it a textbook outline of how not to film the life of a legendary artist. 

I beg to differ: first hand insights from lovers, muses and models are worth more than the all the fine-art academia conjectures put together. Even the film's pointless youth-skateboarding linkages are no worse than the usual art documentary continuity device that shows the unconvincing hand of an extra carefully applying paint to a canvas. 

The prolific art forger's contribution stressing that speed is of the essence gives an accurate insight. Artists don't dawdle, they paint with a passion. Many of his successful Modigliani forgeries were knocked off in thirty minutes. Quite possibly, that was the time it took the artist to paint the originals. 

If only we had a first hand account from Leonardo's model for the Mona Lisa. And on that score, I still subscribe to the possibility of her being the baker's wife. 

My book Notes on the Nude delves deeper into the contribution of the artist's lover, muse and model.

The passage of time

Fifty years separate me in the photo above and me in the self portrait below. Other than the transition from red to white, not much else has changed. 

My fling with flowers

 

Click on the image to view the video

My fling with flowers further demonstrates my way of rapidly working in watercolour. For these paintings I am quite literally, flinging paint on the paper and scribbling in the ink lines, wet on wet. 

In my younger days I stove for an exact botanical rendering, But now that I'm in my eighties, I realise that life is of the essence. 

The sculptor Jacob Epstein, claimed that he has earned more from his flower paintings than what he had earned from his controversial nudes. Perhaps I'll find the same.

Throwing off all restraint

A flower.

For my video Variations on a Theme, by way of the abstract, I threw off all the restraints associated with depicting a certain piece of the female anatomy. The paintings were elusive to the extent that few viewers could fathom them out. Therefore, instead of inducing shock and horror, they attracted favourable comment as to the beauty of line and colour. They also sneaked by social media censors. 

In contrast, my interpretation of flowers, if assembled in a similar collage, might be damned by the "isn't that pretty" beautificationists. 

In point of fact, there's no difference between the two. Both celebrate the raw beauty of nature.

Under my nose

Each morning, when I open my studio door, this is the view that greets me. Within the confusion of its component parts, right there under my nose, in the first rays of sunlight, are countless subjects for my paintings. Furthermore, unlike the complication of arranging and paying for a model, they are there for the asking.

Breaking the Ice

A rough note jotted down on paper.

A video I am working on is about the creative relationship between artist and model. It begins with a twenty minute trail session for a new model. The purpose of the session is to break the ice. I spend most of the session giving the model words of encouragement. The painting is secondary; it amounts to no more than a rough note jotted down on paper. The challenge is how to capture the hesitancy of both artists and model in random words and fleeting moving images. I know what I'm after, but achieving it won't be easy. 

Annihilating a whole oppressive culture.

The girl with dark hair was coming towards him across the field. With what seemed a single movement she tore off her clothes and flung them disdainfully aside. Her body was white and smooth, but it aroused no desire in him, indeed he barely looked at it. What overwhelmed him in that instant was admiration for the gesture with which she had thrown her clothes aside. With all its grace and carelessness it seemed to annihilate a whole oppressive culture, a whole system of thought. (George Orwell, 1984) 

Life-size sculpture of my idylic bathing figure.

My 1989 diary refers to a similar scene while sketching on a riverside in Grenada.

One day, a young woman, undeterred by the teasing of her mates, planted down her basket of washing on a boulder close to my chosen spot.  I rapidly made sketch after sketch until she had scrubbed, beaten, and rinsed her last item.   But her day’s wash didn’t end there, for she next deftly took off her dress and added that to the wash.  Then, unabashed, she soaped herself down and - using a calabash bowl as a ladle - knelt and poured the cooling river water over her naked body.

Prêt-à-porter

Robert Altman’s film Prêt-à-Porter is a stylish and sexy satire on the fashion industry.  The catwalk scene with a difference brought home to me what I've been getting at all along, that being: the human body is less sexually alluring nude than when scantily dressed. 

For the fashion houses the catwalk model has to be devoid of personality. She serves only as a stereotype clothes hanger. But what we see here is a refreshing change. No high heels, no make-up, no spindly ectomorphic figures, no weird costumes. Nothing distracts from the innocent beauty of the nude. The scene bowled me over and made me realise that my interest is not in fashion per se, but in the beauty that lies beneath.  

The nude is truely prêt-à-porter (ready to wear). 

ÔøΩ ÔøΩphanous

 

The bronze torso of my wife Denise drapped with clinging cotton voile.

Diaphanous is derived from the Greek word diaphanes. The prefix dia- means "through", and ÔøΩ ÔøΩphanous means "to show or to make visible". Thus, diaphanous translates directly as "to show through". 

Clinging drapery on the nude figure is a sensuous device that reveals rather than conceals. The scantily clad figure is more sexually provocative than the nude. By partially concealing the model’s attributes by what the French call Draperie mouillée the nude form becomes all the more alluring. It also suggests movement.

This leads me back to my Bare Minimum fashion designs and the allurement of the fleeting glimpse. A video of the collection is one of my works in progress. The word ''video'' is appropriate as it is derived from the Latin videre ''to see''.

Venus Genetrix (Roman, 100-200 A.D.) 

Based on a Greek sculpture created in about 410 B.C.

Out of the blue

There is a connection between my sculpture for the West Yorkshire town of Sowerby Bridge, my painting of the Yorkshire moors, and the photograph of my mother (first on left) when she worked as a mill girl in the Yorkshire mills.

The connection is a request that came a few days ago out of the pale blue of my native West Riding of Yorkshire and into the brilliant blue of my adopted Caribbean. 

That's all for now, but I will connect the dots in a future blog post.

The subtleties of the nude

Continuing my experiments in allowing the photograph, the painting and the sculpture to blend as one. Today's image is from my video of sculptures in my series Daughters of the Caribbean Sun. It could equally represent a screen shot of my brain as I struggle to capture the subtleties of the nude.

My book Notes on the Nude records a lifetime's triumphs and tribulations of working from the live model.

Now you see it, now you don't...

As I mentioned in my last post, to promote and find funding for a forthcoming documentary on the creative relationship between artist and model, I am faced with the curse of social media censors. However, by combining the painted image with the photographed image, both of which are to be seen in motion, I may be able to avoid the degrading compromise of pixilation. This still image from my most recent video is an experiment in that direction.

But censorship apart, those of us that live and work in out-of-the-way places, have no access to many of the platforms that promote the work of creative artists; Esty and Kickstarter being prime examples. The reason being that they don't recognize countries that fall outside their area of activity. Amazon/Kindle will accept us lessor mortals, but at the price of creaming off most of the profits from a sale. 

It is these restrictions that motivated the formation of Studio Publications. It comes to you direct from my studio on small island in the Caribbean. 

Perverting the virtuous

Detail of a photo by Dwayne Martin of model Shana Wonder. 

The circling of Dwayne Martin's innocent photograph of his model Shana Wonder is mine. It is not done to despoil his picture but to draw attention to how the profound beauty of the nude is degraded by social media censors. Thankfully, blogger stands aloof from such practices, but other platforms demand this compromise if they are to carry mention of the artist's and model's work.

The curse of this compromise came to my mind today when I began to search for supportive organisations for a documentary video that will explore the creative relationship between artist and model. It will follow in the footsteps of my book Notes on the Nude. But as my book has been blocked by the major online publisher, my chances of finding a supportive platform that is free from compromise are slim.