Urban Camouflage Body painting by Trina Merry
Artist Statement:
Dodging people, traffic, and even at times, police, NYC bodypainter Trina Merry uses guerrilla tactics to create live painting performances on the street and documents them with photography. Her hyper-real illusions camouflage subjects into their surroundings. Juxtaposing the hard lines of architecture with the soft curves of the body, she explores the historic messages of gender placed on New York infrastructure: for example, the tension between the lines of the bridge with the imperfectly beautiful curves of a woman reaching ambitiously within a masculine structure or identity and voyeurism in the chaotic, neon-tinged streets of New York City.
Experience: Street Art Body Painting
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.”
As a multimedia artist, I use human models and body paint to breathe life into landscapes. 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.
The real magic comes from the energy of working with a human model. From the first moment I worked with a live model, I was intrigued by a blank canvas that has a heartbeat. Even though working with humans has its own demands because they sweat and have to take bathroom breaks, I embrace those challenges. It makes me – and the art – stronger.
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. When starting a camouflage painting, the model and I visit the city and decide on a location. We pick out the pose; I photograph it and figure out the optimal perspective.
I align models with the backgrounds and use hypoallergenic paint and a brush or airbrush to directly paint on their body. Eventually their figures blend right in to the background. I paint what I see while constantly keeping an eye on the overall perspective. Each camouflage session typically takes one to three hours.
There is a genuine intimacy as we work to create art out in the open in front of the world. We are exposed not only through the nudeness of the human body, but also through the sheer nakedness of creating something from nothing.
After all, body paint dates back 250,000 years. It is part of our innate human process. People are often fascinated by watching me work. As I paint and photograph, tourists are taking photos of me painting on some very private areas of the human body. My models are undeterred by being under intense spotlight in public.
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. Sometimes we just want to hide away from the world for a while, but there is beauty in that retreat. When we are ready to reveal ourselves, we come back to life and that is a beautiful thing. Many of my models tell me they feel empowered and emboldened after participating in one of my projects.
Those viewing the art may have the same reaction. When looking at the Urban Camouflage series, sometimes the human body pops right out at you and other times you have to look closely to reveal the outline of the human form.
The result both touches the spirit and blows the mind.
Process: Gender Equality & the Top Free Act
Trina Merry, an artist known for her innovative work in contemporary fine art body painting, is taking on gender equality and body image in one of her recent works.
Merry’s urban camouflage series paints over bodies so they merge with the surrounding landscape.
Recently, Merry merged Meara Rose, a body-positive influencer, into the landscape of The World Trade Center Oculus in New York City.
The Oculus--a bright, light-filled, architectural beauty--serves as a transportation hub located at Ground Zero, where the twin towers fell during 9/11. It invokes hope, redemption, and freedom.
The architect, Santiago Calatrava, intended the structure to look like, “a bird being released from a child’s hand.”
Merry’s work takes a topless Rose and paints her into the Oculus, the outline of her body just visible. She becomes the Oculus but is still embodied within herself.
The work was meaningful to Rose.
She thought it was an act of “desexualizing nudity.”
New York City is one of 14 cities in the U.S. that has been, “top tested,” according to Gotopless.org, meaning it’s one of 14 cities that women have been topless in without persecution.
Since 1992, it’s been legal for women to be topless in New York State wherever a man is allowed to be topless.
Rose, who is a plus-sized model, described the work as a form of empowerment. “It's okay to have a body and no matter what it looks like, it's still beautiful,” she said of her experience working with Merry. “We are all art.”
The work not only normalizes Rose’s body, it celebrates it by melding Rose into the Oculus, an already famous piece of art.
Rose touches on Merry’s purpose as outlined in her artist’s statement.
Merry herself was a model for body painting before she took her own to brush to others. She was struck by lightning while driving in Los Angeles. The effect made being around electricity painful.
While she healed, musician Amanda Palmer suggested that Merry participate in the opening act for Palmer’s then band (the Dresden Dolls).
Merry stood on stage, nude and was body painted. The experience gave her a new perspective on art. “Art had a heart beat. Art could be vulnerable. Art was… happening,” writes Merry in her artist’s statement.
Since then body painting has played a central role in Merry’s work.
By using a living canvas, Merry feels as though her art is more effective when discussing issues such as race, gender, and body image, according to an article from The Argonaut. Painting nude women, in particular, allows her to reclaim the feminine body from the male gaze.
Rose stated that as soon as she found out about Merry’s art she knew she had to work with her. According to Rose, there still isn’t a huge demand for plus-sized modeling in New York City.
While being painted into the Oculus, she felt free and liberated. “And to be camouflaged and immortalized into this building felt really, really, cool and important because I'm not used to seeing architecture like that in my daily life,” she said.
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