We know what we are, but know not what we may be

I enjoy drawing as much as i do painting, so allowing time for myself to create these sketches give me so many idea’s that i couldn’t possibly create everything. Again this image was sourced online and i made changes to the stomach using a different image, to keep the muscular female theme.

The reason i chose this image is because of the powerful gaze. Which i find intriguing. The Gaze is something that is generally occupied with the female nude. History has painted the female nude visually implying the ‘gaze’, a psychological theory, between the optical and tactical senses. (Sassatelli, 2011, P.123-143)   The Gaze intended to titillate the male senses.  According to psychologists Laura Mulvey, the “male gaze” positions the male as a spectator with the female on display, objectifying the women as an object, inviting the male to take pleasure through the gaze to project his own fantasy of either Voyeuristic or fetishist desire, powering the male’s ego. (Sassatelli, 2011, P.123-143) The male gaze used by artists, is an important process that defines the meaning behind a painting.

I found a few images online whilst looking for books on images of the body from Amazon and  this particular image attracted my attention and i decided that i would like to sketch it out. Again with all my drawings and paintings i avoid being completely accurate. I( i do not use graphs or squares etc.) I do want my image to resemble what i am looking at, but i prefer to let my mistakes and the motions flow through my work, so that the work then becomes my own and is not a replica of the images i find. They are my interpretations and if i decide to paint them, i will do so from my drawings so that the image again can change through the process. This helps to distance the final image away from the original. ( With my sketch i loved the way that the back of the female is curved like a wave, keeping the idea of women having curves.)

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Bodies-Boris-Vallejo-His-Photographic/dp/1560251581

Concentrating purely on the stomach and chest of the female body builder, the muscles which define the body doesn’t define the sex of the person. You tend to find that women who do alot of extreme body building loose there breasts as they turn the fatty tissue into muscles/pectorals . (This is mainly due to drug intake on the woman’s behalf to enhance the muscles like a man)  In magazines the female bodybuilders are depicted with large breasts this is because the majority have had breast surgery to retain the female parts to define themselves still as women. (It is worth noting that if women do exercise or do body building that unless pushed to its extreme state that they will still retain the female breasts.) But for my project i have found it interesting to look into females that have pushed there bodies to the extreme, losing society definition of the female identity of there breasts. Making them visually mimic a male body (chest, abs, arms, legs, shoulders).

This drawing was taken from an image online, that i cropped to focus on the face. The woman on the original image was very muscular and i wanted to see if i could carry this from the body into the face. I left in the bulk and muscles in the shoulders and chest, like a little taster. Implying the idea of a less famine body shape. Which reminded me of something i read about Lucian Freud, about treating the head the same as any other limb. And that you can create a portraiture through the body. Freud said, “I realized that I very much wanted the figure not to be strengthened by the head. I wanted the likeness, the portraiture to come out of the figure.”(Feaver, 2005, P36/37)

In regards to Lucian Freud whenever he spoke about his work in relation to his depictions of people he would always refer to them as portraits, whether they be of full length nudes or of just of a persons face.

Because i like drawing/sketching, i personally think that my work is best strengthened in a negative/grey scale. I do appreciate the colours of flesh  especially in the works created by Jenny Saville and Lucian Freud, where they have depicted the meaty flesh, allowing the paint to represent/ mimic the skins natural state. But for me personally i like the authenticity of black and white. It reminds me of old photographs.

Before i started this subject on the female nude i created a few works on portraiture. I believe that portraiture is very important. The works that i created where not created by making an exact replica of that person by using squares to ensure everything was in the “right place”.  That for me is very restricting. When i’m creating an image i want to capture that persons characteristics the truth not the facts. I want my works to go beyond the scope of a photograph. If i wanted the photograph to be my work then i wouldn’t create drawings and paintings as the photo would be sufficient. But i like the interaction and the motions the process that leads to a different outcome. From my portraits people where very positive in the way that i had gotten to know my “subject” (the person to whom i was painting) and then was enable to create an accurate depiction of that person using the photograph of them as just another source of information. I had managed to capture there character/ personality. And i think that was what Lucian Freud was trying to push forward, that his works where personal and his relationship with the subject made his work unique and is what separated him from other artists.