A body of work

Two years ago, I took a painting course as my arts elective. I had three painting classes each week, and each class was 3-4 hours long. Intense, huh? Yes indeed, but I loved every minute of it! I was a commerce student, but of all my friends knew I was an art kid at heart. Getting a break from accounting, economics, and finance, by taking these visual arts courses took my mind off from my "biz-stress". Needless to say, I could stare at my canvas for hours. Although, I am a marketing major and my education is definitely more business centered, art will always remain as my first and true love.

In every painting class, there would no doubt always be one nude painting session. As soon as the first model unraveled her naked body, I could sense some people's nervousness and uneasiness to the situation. As for me, I was surprisingly calm and collected. In fact, I was excited to paint the bare body for the first time. My professor challenged us by giving us time limits that shortened after every pose. Capturing the proportions, shadings, highlights, curves, and fixtures in the most accurate way with the restrictions left us dumbfounded. In the end I created beautiful disproportions, bold and long strokes, simplifications and exaggerations, which inevitably created a different perspective of the human body.

The human body is not perfect. These nudists were definitely not ashamed of their bodies, although they didn't exactly have the 36-24-36 measurements, they knew how to celebrate their beautifully imperfect bodies. Our scars, arched noses, wrinkles, tear-drop butts, muscular calves, make us uniquely different from each other. After all... Your body is a wonderland, right?