"Winds of Change"

This is a painting I finished in the last year. It was the first "nude" that I have displayed on exhibit or on social media. I have received many questions and comments on it. So I decided I wanted to use my blog to address some of those questions. I realized that there seem to be two camps of people on the subject of nudity in art. One camp is of the mind that the human figure in its purest form is beautiful and is a work of art in itself to be admired. The other camp seems to be hypersensitive to the idea of pornography and consider any representation of the human form to be derogatory in nature. I wish to shed some light on the latter at least as it appears in art, and more specifically in my art. I also realize that the predominately left-brained world sees things at face value. If you only look at the subject matter, and all you see is a naked woman, then you are missing the entire story that this picture tells. This painting is called Winds of Change. It is a feeling that I longed to paint for a long time and it just took a while for the visual image of that feeling to emerge clear enough for me to paint. This feeling is a familiar and recurring feeling I get when everything seems calm, but is about to change. It is a state of emotional vulnerability where I feel powerless, but also feel strong because I know I have been here before. So, no matter how big or small or good or bad the change is, I know I will emerge on the other side somehow different, wiser, stronger. I know my only choice is to face it and accept it. The softness of the colors and the strokes are supposed to be the comfort and the acceptance. The movement in her hair and the subtle tones of the sand on her naked body represent that she herself is part of the movement. They are not separate. There is no foreseeable destination or place that she is going to or coming from. She is rooted in this moment between what was and what is coming and unsure of what that will be. The way that her hands and body are nestled down into the sand are symbolic of her feeling of powerlessness over the change. So, it is not a painting of a naked woman, it is a painting of a feeling of vulnerability, and also courage, and strength. One of the other questions I got from several people is "Is It you?" It is me and it isn't me. It is my feeling, it is my emotion transposed, and I suppose there are likenesses between me and this figure. However, I didn't try to paint it as a self -portrait in any way. This is the case with most of my paintings that tend to look like a representation of me, they are not self-portraits as much as they are self-reflections of something inside my soul.

Until we meet again,

JD