The SKIN and FLESH

SAM JINKS - artist

Sam Jinks

                                Women's Face II, 200835 x 25 x 25 cmmixed media

Sam Jinks
Women's Face II, 2008
35 x 25 x 25 cm
mixed media

Sam Jinks
Calcium divide (self portrait) 

2011 840cm x 600cm x 660cm mixed media

Sam Jinks
"woman and child."
silicone, silk, human hair. 2010

 Sam Jinks

Duo, 2008,

130 x 28 x 19 cmmixed media

 Sam Jinks

Duo, 2008

130 x 28 x 19 cmmixed media

Sam Jinks
Duo, 2008
130 x 28 x 19 cm
mixed media

Sam Jinks
Still Life (Pieta) 2007
silicon, paint & human hair
160.0 x 123.0 cm

There is two reasons why I became interested in Sam Jenkins work.

Number one is his recreation of human flesh through sculpture. I find it so interesting the accuracy of his bodies of work. It is through his reflection upon the surface of skin I draw Inspiration, the liberation of imperfection. It is through this imperfection that beauty can be found. It is the truthfulness in Jenkins work that transcends conventional interpretations of beauty, It is in the naturalness of the human form that you can find beauty in Jenkins works. This Idea of truthfulness is in essence part of the foundation to my work, my work is based around the female form and the truth in this form is something that can't be neglected. 

Number two is the mental connection Jenkins finds his works produces. In his studio he finds when people come in they seem to connect with the sculptures and through this they explain to him the similarities in which they find with the sculpture and in someone they know, a story is told about this person and a new dimension to Jenkins sculptures is established.  

It is not the physical appearance of these sculptures that inspire me but rather the EMOTIONS these sculptures create with an audience.

The work I'm producing this year is an attempt to test peoples emotions and tolerance to nudity/nakedness and the female form. I don't aim to shock people but rather to surprise them, I don't aim to create controversy though I feel this is inevitable. The notion of being naked/nude is something that frightens people due to a lack of understanding and its association to being VULNERABLE and uncivilised. I want to be able to produce a collection of pieces that challenge the idea of being naked/nude, through a personal interpretation of TRUTHFUL ELEGANCE.  

IONE RUCQUOI - mixed media artist

This particular Image is especially beautiful, the way the flesh hangs from the mannequin gives human like quality to the image, this also is helped by the inclusion of breasts. This image resonates a certain feminine eroticism of questionable taste. However gruesome this image may appear there is still an element of which drawn you in, there is a certain tinge of romanticism the naturalness of the suggested movement and calmness that sits upon the models faces eludes to a very modal atmospheric energy.  

This image I fond so interesting, It is through the hidden face and the exposed breast that within this simplicity there is a truth. I find this image completely un-erotic, its un-suggestive and doesn't allude to any form of sexual connotation. However I understand the personal interpretation of my words.

R A C H E L  F R E I R E - Fashion Designer

 Rachel Freire

AW/11/12

Rachel Freire

AW/11/12

Rachel Freire has a way of creating quite visually stunning garments and ornamentation but it is generally not until closer inspection you see the torturous nature of these garments. Visually scary and shocking, it is however in this indirect way that these garments are so beautiful, the fact that eminently the obvious is not so obvious. If you haven't noticed yet the small petals that make the flowers on these garments are actually cow nipples. 

These Images are from my last body of work "FLESH". These are two images of the same hand that has been painted with latex allowed to dry and peeled off the hand (the image below illustrates the peeling off of the latex glove).

What was partially beautiful about this hand is its rough textured surface and the accuracy in which the finger prints were captured, this juxtaposition of surfaces within the one piece is unique in the way it relates to the human flesh and its ability to vary so dramatically in appearance, whether it be from person to person or on the same individual. 

These images of hands and feet were also taken by me for my body of work "FLESH" it was an attempt to look at the surfaces of my own flesh as well as that of my friends. 

This idea of textured imperfect surfaces is what attracts me to the human flesh and what leads me on to the use of Natural leather which lends itself quite beautifully yet accurately to resemble human flesh. The natural leather has the ability to age as it is exposed to air and light causing it to discolour, wear and stiffen just as if it were the flesh. 

D R A P E & Madame Grés

Sourced: http://www.flickr.com/photos/61809996@N05/5893191251/sizes/l/in/photostream/ 

Naked Glory Vera

Madam Grés, There is something about the effortless in her designs, in this short video you hear one of  Grés models talking about how comfortable the gowns were to wear,  E F F O R T L E S S in every sense of the word. 




This is a video I developed. It's a documentation of my process, or rather a video to help me in understanding my developing process. 

C O V E R I N G

These are some excerpts that I pulled from the book 'Aware, Art Fashion and Identity'

"Clothing is imbued with meaning and thought to reveal something of the self, whether we like it or not"

Aware, Art Fashion and Identity, Fashion, Clothing and Identity: A Modern Contradiction, Joanne Entwistle pg 25

"While clothing 'messages' are opaque and open to misunderstanding, there is a common belief that clothes 'speak' of identity." (Aware, Art Fashion and Identity, Fashion, Clothing and Identity: A Modern Contradiction, Joanne Entwistle pg 25)

"Cconsciously or unconsciously, everyone who plays this fashion game knows that the 'truth' of identity is never fixed or secure"

(Aware, Art Fashion and Identity, Fashion, Clothing and Identity: A Modern Contradiction, Joanne Entwistle pg 25)

V i t o  A c c o n c i

Vito Acconci is considered one of the major artist of the twentieth-century "from 1970 on, Acconci produced an explosive series of pieces and actions which emphasised the way the human body is torn between private and public needs; he weaves all of human behaviours as sharing an unconscious deference to rules and boundaries, the most important of which are the boundaries separating private space from shared space", this collective work was entitled Umbruffla, 2005-10. (Sourced from Aware art fashion and identity, Fashion, clothing and identity, Royal academy Of Arts, Acconci Studio, Vito Acconci pg 49)

Acconci created the wearable umbrella which can be used to provide privacy in our everyday lives, if you feel to consumed by the outside world you can enter this umbrella to feel safe, secure and alone in your own private environment. i find this notion of needing to feel protected as interesting considering we already have our most important organs on the inside of our bodies protected by flesh and then still wear clothing also protect. 

What are we protecting ourselves from when we are already equipped with this device thorough our flesh. It is through our flesh that we can identify ourselves by, our skin colour defines race, and condition of skin displays relative age. Why would we want to cover our natural bodies up? It is this notion that confuses me and urges me more to display the form under our clothing apposed to covering it up and smothering the potential for expression. 

'C U T P I E C E' Yoko Ono

Yoko Ono was a pioneer of performance art, in the mid to late 60s, she performed 'Cut Piece' a performing art display where she invited members of the audience to come up and cut strips from her clothing, "while the scraps of fabric fell to the floor one by one, the unveiling of the female body suggested the total destruction of the barriers imposed by conventions..." as the performing art piece by Ono continued it "...became an aggressive act - still motionless, the artist was by now almost naked exposed in all her vulnerability" (Aware, Art Fashion Identity By The Royal Collage of Art, London, © 2010)

Vulnerability through nakedness

Unintentional exposure

Changing/altering nakedness

How can one be naked and dressed at the same time? 

How can I follow the conventions of dress yet still emulate the emotions associated with vulnerability  through staying visually dress?

"Scraps of fabric fell to the floor one by one"

There is an emotion in these words, you can almost feel what it would be like to slowly be revealed with ever snip of the scissors. 

The brush of fabric over the skin I believe would have the same effect, you think of when you are wearing a silky dress and when it slip off, it melting down your back and frees itself from your shoulders, your waist and hips, freedom is being felt, you step out of the garment and observe it laying motionless there on the floor. 

I imagine a dress of smooth draped fabric. The weight lays in its tucks and hangs from the points on the body, as you move the sensation of falling fabric brushes against your bare flesh, the weigh shifts as your body moves, "scraps of fabric fall to the floor one by one"

The Human Response

M a r i n a  A m b r a m o v i c

'Imponderability' 

This video is just terrible but it still is quite easy to see and understand what is going on, you are at least able to see some of the facial expressions on the people faces as they walk though the door. 

Such modern thinking for the 70s I love it, 

I really connect with the relaxed way in which Ambramovic talked about the exhibition and how the performance was cut short by law enforcement. 

People are not prepared for nudity, its seems that if nudity is portrayed in a naturalistic and indifferent way which disregards the responses from spectators there is less of an understanding or appreciation. Society; the human condition is scared of the unknown. Not understanding leads us to question our own sexuality and sexual freedoms. These freedoms are not just personal but how we feel our society view us under such a light, fear of judgement and persecution.

Society however seems to accept a crazy running down the street naked or a streaker running across a file, there is an acceptance of this such behaviour. This behaviour seems to be less relatable, we brush it off we can assimilate with this act, we have been taught that this kind of nudity is acceptable because there is often a simplified reason for such behaviours; mental illness or alcohol. 





This image I found and thought of our Human response toward dolls as young girls, we aspire to them they are the ultimate representation of womanhood, yet they are allowed to reveal their flesh and we are allowed to reveal it ourselves...? 

" T O D R E S S "

D R E S S -  "put on one’s clothes, wear clothes in a particular way or of a particular type, decorate (something) in an artistic or attractive way,  clothing, especially the visible part" Oxford Dictionary online

"The concept of nudity and dress are burdened with implicit moral and cultural connotations as well as the subjectivity of the viewer... nudity is entangled in a multitude of ideas about the self and the other often pejorative to a greater or lesser extent, and inherently misconceived."  Frederick John Lamp Dress, Undress, Clothing, and Nudity

Lamp suggests that scholars such as Joanne Eicher and her colleague Mary Ellen Roach-Higgins refer to  dressing  as being a "medium" of "body modification and body supplements."

"Modifications" can be interpreted as changes being made to such things as hair, skin, muscles, teeth and such radical changes as plastic surgery techniques.

"Supplements" were referred to as being "enclosures, attachments to the body, attachments to the enclosures, and objects held in the hand."

this kind of dress however is not the kind in which you use to completely conceal but rather as an aid to conceal and to embellish.

The complete opposite of 'D R E S S' is to be 'U N - D R E S S E D a complete rejection of any form of adornment or embellishment, no make up, no pain on your nails, no moisturiser or antiperspirants. As Lamp suggests in his writing on 'Dress, Undress, Clothing, and the Nude' "it is hard to imagine a human being who does not dress the body in some way...hence to be human is to dress, and to dress is to be human." In saying this to be "undressed" is to be "naked" and that is a totally acceptable human state, and to view nakedness is to appreciate the human form, It is natural to lust after the form and an erotic aura is only natural when considering nakedness and nudity but what I try to instill in my work is an appreciation rather than desire or sexualisation. I try to create an understanding that the nude female form is an object and this is through the rejection of personalisation through a face or personality. 

To be " N U D E "

U N D R E S S E D - take off one’s clothes, the state of being naked or only partially clothed. Oxford dictionary online

N A K E D - without clothes, without the usual covering or protection, expressed openly; undisguised, exposed to harm; vulnerable: Oxford dictionary online

"Ruth Barcan, a scholar engaged in gender studies, recorded the musings of a female nude model in her book Nudity: to the model, nude sounded more "proper and artistic," and the word naked meant "earthly". She went on to say that, nevertheless, she preferred the word naked, as she viewed it as closer to her physical body and nude was a more  of a mind-based concept." Lamp Dress, Undress, Clothing, and Nudity

I agree with Barcan's statement of preferring the use of naked because she affiliated this state with her own personal relationship to the word. There is a certain element of relation to the words naked and nude its through this relation that confusion occurs, we as humans can not avoid being naked we must partake in daily cleaning and dressing etc. 

When thinking of clothing for the body that communicates nakedness I can't help but use the word nude and I think this comes about due to my processes lacking an actual human through research, I work in a way that I only include the form of the female only her torso, I have no need to personalise it by including a face, faces become to much a focal point and the respect in relation to the clothing is lost in a personalisation of it.  

The confusion in Art comes about through the inclusion of a figure, a face, and thus the assumed personality of the female. It's like porn, what makes porn? Is porn still as shocking when you take away the face of the model? I believe porn has a stigma due to the nature in which it is viewed but if the same image was viewed in an art gallery it would be seen as Art. I feel like most of the time people only consider some things as Art because they are told it is such. People lack their own identity and confidence to reject the idea's that are given to them. This blindness is what gives shrouds Nakedness in such a negative light. Parents protect their children from it, we have ratings on movies to warn us of it and yet we are all allowed to walk into an art gallery to view 'Art' of which is of the Naked and Nude human form.  

Are we embarrassed of our own bodies and is that what makes up scared of others, are we scared of this truth, or are we scared that the masks we wear everyday will be removed for ever if we reveal ourselves?

Lamp explains how nudity is viewed as an embarrassing state and is often seen as "primitive". If we as humans in western society deem nakedness as primitive the act of making love must also be viewed as primitive the act of conceiving and bearing a child must also be seen as primitive because these are all things that we must do in nakedness. I understand however that this idea of nakedness being primitive comes about through the need to dress and how in to days society the means in which to acquire clothing is easy and there is no need or reason to be naked because it is so easy not to be so. 

"Adam and eve entered the world naked and unashamed-naked and pure-minded. And no dependent of theirs has ever entered it otherwise. all have entered it naked, unashamed, and clean in mind....'Modesty' has no standard, and cannot have one, because it is opposed to nature and reason and is therefore a artificiality and subject to anyone' s whim" Mark Twain, Letters from Earth

Modesty is a topic I haven't yet even considered but the idea is so crucial in understanding nakedness and nudity. I don't actually know know why i keep referring to these words as two different things essentially they are the same but I would prefer to use the word Nude in my work as apposed to referencing the naked human being. 

Modesty is a personal, social, cultural or religious view on the state of nakedness.

Gustav Klimt Nuda Veritas 1899

Helmut Newton

Helmut Newton

Can these Images be seen as PORN or ART, considering both Newton and Klimt are artists.The images below are considered Porn because they are positioned on playing cards from a sex shop, but if placed in a different environment are they really still Porn or can they be considered as Art?

Lovely Porn card provided by Condom Kingdom

Lovely Porn card provided by Condom Kingdom

P R O C E S S - The J A C K E T

The idea of the body beneath being unrestricted by the garment is what has made me move on from this jacket. 

LOOK 1 - COLLAR UP

Its been a while since I've attempt tailoring, this attempt was very juvenile but after a quick refresher I'm all back on track. 

I'm not happy with overall aesthetic, there is something wrong about the jacket that lies in the tailoring, the lines confuses me. There is too much going on with all the seams and darts, to me there is a messiness in the crispness that is a tailored jacket. I suppose in saying that I need to define my interpretation of the tailored jacket tailored jacket then...

A garment with well considered construction and execution. A garment that commands attention and asserts power through its silhouette and presence. 

The reason I took the image with the collar up is because there is a more stream line effect that I am attracted too, to be honest I think this is more appealing because it appears to have no collar and in having no collar is reducing the business of the entire garment. 

 N O T E : I have also not yet attached the back panel yet so the jacket appears looser.

LOOK 2 - COLLAR DOWN

Look 2 with the collar down is far to busy, I feel claustrophobic. having a collar is like persecution of the jacket condemning it to a life of looking like every other 'tailored jacket'. 

I've attempted to eliminating the tight restricting nature of the jacket on the jacket in LOOK 1 by scooping away at the hem to create this fluid motion around the body, still not happy, there is still this apparent sharpness about the silhouette.

! ! B I G G E R ! ! 

The silhouette of the other 2 jackets are restricting in relation to the form, they fit the form too well to a point of restriction. It was in class that we decided that everything needed to be BIGGER, I suppose I just need to let the body swim and be free.

I love the work of Madame Gres and the way she articulates her design methodologies I find inspiring.

"I have always respected the body structure and the natural movement of a given material. I limit the number of seams in order to give a better impression of freedom of subtleness, of silhouette? 

Madame Gres

There is something about this image that made me think of this Vionnet quote . . .

"I have sought all my life to be the doctor of line" 

Vionnet

G A R Y B I G E N I

I've been looking at doing some internships in Sydney before the Sydney fashion week. Gary Bigeni has been one of the designers that I've been considering approaching. 

D R A P E 

I've never done it but I would so very much like to learn. DRAPE is something I would like to bring to my work this year, I think it has a strong connection with the body in its ability to interact with the form beneath in a way that a tailored jacket or tight fitting garment are incapable to do. Also with my desire to work with nylon stretch chiffons the idea of pairing this fabrication with drape means amazing translucent garment that reveals the form beneath whilst moving with fluidity.