I thought I'd share the story of the first time I was exposed to the art of bodypainting.
It was a normal weekend in the summer of 1992 when my mother pulled me away from Saturday morning cartoons to accompany her to the grocery store. Of course I protested greatly with some typical whining and stomping of feet, just like any 12 year old would do when pried away from GI Joe. Needless to say I was unsuccessful in my attempt to get out of grocery shopping day.
A half hour later I found myself in tow behind my mother at our local grocery. Like any kid I tried riding in or on the front of the cart, but that kind of nonsense never went over well with my mother, so I just had to shuffle along behind her. I always thought grocery shopping to be a tedious endeavor, and that day was no different... Well, at least with how it started.
After an exhausting hour of traversing every aisle, some multiple times for forgotten items, we were ready to check out, and how I couldn't have been happier. Once we got in line at the check out I immediately made a beeline to the candy shelf, (yeah I was a fat kid) but my mother quickly reigned me in. So as usual I pouted and stomped my feet in frustration.
A few minutes past and my mother scurried up in line and began putting the items on the conveyor. I followed along and stopped just behind her skirt tails. I just wanted to get the shopping trip over because I was now officially bored out of my mind. However, it was at that moment I realized we were in checkout 5 and I quickly jarred my head over to the periodical rack and immediately burst out laughing at the "Bat Boy" gracing the cover of the latest Weekly World News.
My mother briefly glanced down, but just scoffed at the rag disguised as investigative news and went back to checking out. I however continued scanning over the headlines of the other papers and magazines to pass the time. Just the typical celebrity news from the Star, the latest gossip from the Enquirer, Demi Moore naked on the cover of Vanity Fair...
WAIT! WHAT???
Yep, Hollywood A-list actress Demi Moore was right there in our local grocery store completely naked! But of course that fact really didn't register in my brain at the time. The magazine just said she was in her "birthday suit" and being twelve I've never heard that term before, so I had no idea what it's connotations were. Infact, to the untrained eye one could perhaps mistake the suit she was wearing as the real thing. I sure did because as I began staring more closely at the cover the only thing I just couldn't help but wonder about was, "Why is a lady wearing a suit?"
That's really all I saw at first. Just an actress wearing a suit. Albeit a tight suit, skin tight upon further inspection. Infact, it actually took me a few moments to realize the suit wasn't even real in the first place, and that it was in reality just paint. When the realization that Demi Moore was wearing a painted on suit finally hit me the thought just confused me. I needed answers so I picked up the magazine and briefly thumbed through it...
Yes siree, that suit was painted on her body all right, but for the life of me I just couldn't understand why, so in full naivete I tugged on my mother's skirt and asked, "Why is this lady's suit painted on?" Of course I didn't see anything provocative or "naughty" about it, as my mother later told me it was. I just saw a woman wearing a suit made of paint. It was more confusing than anything else, and because of this misperception I was moreover shocked when my mother sharply grabbed the magazine from my hands and started screaming bloody hell at the poor girl working the register.
Needless to say my mother was not thrilled that the store would put out, "nudie mags" as she called it, and right in the aisle for kids to see. Of course I was still confused at what was really going on, especially when my mother said Ms Moore was naked. Of course that's what garnered my attention. "Huh!? She's naked?" I gasped. It was kind of a given with a bodypaint suit, but again when I first saw it, A, I had no idea she was naked, and B, even when I realized it was paint I still didn't see her as being naked.
That is the true beauty of bodypainting. Transforming ones body in such a way to disguise the nudity we should be perceiving. This is what the artist, Joanne Gair, was striving for when she created the trompe-l'œil style of body art on Demi Moore's own skin, and it is what I too now strive to create in my own artwork. And all it took was seeing a naked woman in line at the grocery store.
Bodypainting by Joanne Gair and photography by Annie Leibovitz for Vanity Fair.