When we are ready to reveal ourselves, we come back to life and that is a beautiful thing. Sometimes we just want to hide away from the world for a while, but there is beauty in that retreat. The techniques I use for each project are different, but the message is the same: Among all of us there is an innate need to be camouflaged. My models are undeterred by being under intense spotlight in public. As I paint and photograph, tourists are taking photos of me painting on some very private areas of the human body. People are often fascinated by watching me work. We are exposed not only through the nudeness of the human body, but also through the sheer nakedness of creating something from nothing.Īfter all, body paint dates back 250,000 years. There is a genuine intimacy as we work to create art out in the open in front of the world.

Each camouflage session typically takes one to three hours. I paint what I see while constantly keeping an eye on the overall perspective. Eventually their figures blend right in to the background. I align models with the backgrounds and use hypoallergenic paint and a brush or airbrush to directly paint on their body. We pick out the pose I photograph it and figure out the optimal perspective. When starting a camouflage painting, the model and I visit the city and decide on a location. The way I see it, everything we cross paths with has its own rhythm, so I seize that spirit right at the very beginning of the process. Even though working with humans has its own demands because they sweat and have to take bathroom breaks, I embrace those challenges. From the first moment I worked with a live model, I was intrigued by a blank canvas that has a heartbeat. The real magic comes from the energy of working with a human model. In urban scenes where the view seems so cold and lifeless, I am able to juxtapose the hard lines of architecture against the softness of human curves to create images that are thought-provoking, provocative and well, magical. If camouflage is defined as “hiding or disguising the presence of a person, animal, or object,” then my art may be described as camouflage 2.0, - the “ability to bring awareness to elements of life that have previously been camouflaged.”Īs a multimedia artist, I use human models and body paint to breathe life into landscapes.

Urban camouflage