The distinguished faculty of the Design department presents new work, offering a look into the diverse talent of the Cornish community. Full-color catalogue available.

March 17 – April 8
Opening Reception: March 17, 5-8pm
(Their openings usually have wine and catered food!)

“Maggie” 3′x 4′, acrylic on wood

When she and Mike came over to pick it up, I decided to make a to-do, and set up the painting on my easel in the middle of my studio and arranged a piece of heavy velvet over it (my bedroom curtain). I put on an evening gown, I gave them glasses of wine, and eventually unveiled the painting like a gameshow hostess.

Maggie had posed for me in two sittings, and I made the portrait from my pencil sketches and a bunch of reference photos.

Maggie emailed me a short video of walking into their home, and the first thing you see when you walk in their door is the portrait at the top of their staircase. “The reception of the portrait has been resoundingly fantastic. People have been impressed by your ability to make such a striking portrait and describe your work as so distinguishable.”

Continue on this post to see other paintings in the “Big Paintings of Sexy Women” series (note: NSFW, if your W isn’t cool with nudity).

“Big Paintings of Sexy Women”
2003 – ongoing

I just dug through my files and found my artist statement from the first showing of this series (in 2003! jeez) at Secluded Alley Works in Seattle. I was very excited about working large-scale, and my statement is full of exclamation points. (”This is only the beginning!!”) Many of my indignant concerns about narrowly-defined beauty ideals have since been addressed by Suicide Girls and shmillions of other forums that aim to break the mold, so I’ll skip my introduction about standardized beauty. (Still relevant but, yawn).

Here are a few of the paintings, with some excerpts from my artist statement:

Janet, 4′x3′x3″, acrylic on wood

My intent in this series is to show women who are:

Self possessed: cheeky, dead serious, or smirky; luring or hamming for the viewer; but doing what she thinks is sexy, it’s her show.

Deliberately sexy: she knows it.

Oranges, 4′x3′x3″, acrylic on wood

Aware of the viewer: this goes back to feminist theory from college, about the male gaze objectifying women and in that way seizing the power of the interaction. [I know I know, the objectifying gaze isn't necessarily male, and is objectification really always bad?, and etc. Nevertheless.] The models here are objectified too, but also gazing directly at the viewer in an objectifying way, creating an ambiguity of the power roles between the viewer and the model. (Like, is the viewer the one who’s deciding if the model is sexy? Or is the model like, “Yeah yeah, I know. What makes you think you deserve it?”)

Mary, 3′x4′x3″, acrylic on wood

Portraits: I wasn’t idealizing these women’s bodies – dimples, freckles, thighs. All the models are friends of mine that I think are beautiful. They chose their poses themselves – I asked them what made them feel sexy – like, by themselves, how might they pose in the mirror? (Except K-O with the bottle – I asked her to pose like that. It was her own favorite beer, though.) So the poses were personal to them and what made them feel sexy and powerful.

K-O, 4′x3′x3″, acrylic on wood

He asked me to draw her on a Persian rug, and to include a tiny bit of turquoise (to match his decor). Interestingly, he only had three photos of her, and I needed more for reference, so I asked him to find some other cats online that reminded him of her (the one on the far right is “Ingrid”):

He loved it and said the portrait looks just like her (whew!).

For the first couple takes I still had chipped blue nail polish on. Oops! Not that I needed a fancy manicure (though that would’ve been nice!) but if nothing else it was distracting.

From Seattle Magazine (photo by Richard Darbonne)

Also, a bunch of people in my yoga class bought copies as Valentine’s presents, including Denise, my beloved teacher and studio owner, and it was a kick to see everyone hand around my sample copy. (As always: “What’s pegging?”)