Contemporary painting using the skin as a surface or brush is considered bodypainting.

It has indigenous art roots and is considered to be the oldest art form made by humans. Performance artists in the 1950-1970s used the artform for Avante Garde “happenings”.  In contemporary art, bodypaint is used in combination with performance, photography, video and digital mediums to explore ideas about the body, gender and our relationship to technology. Optical illusion bodypaintings camouflage the subject into an environment or use multiple bodies to form a sculpture, whereas psychedelic art returns to indigenous roots and combines shaman ceremonies and surrealistic practices with psychedelic drug dosing. 

Body painters paint on people, using the body as a surface. Indigenous bodypaint identifies rites of passage or ranking within a tribe. Contemporary body painters use body paint as a fine art medium in combination with other art forms like performance, photography, video & digital media. Pop culture bodypaint can be used decoratively as creative makeup or cosplay, to camouflage soldiers for war, by enthusiastic sports fans, for advertising purposes by brands, or as a protest (PETA, Naked Biked Day, etc). Bodypaint is the most ancient art form in the world, it even pre-dates cave paintings, yet its contemporary incarnation has only been around since the 1960s thanks to amazing innovative artists like:

• Marina Abromovic’s performances 

• Yayoi Kusama’s infinity dots performances 

• Banksy’s Dismaland and shredded painting

• Yves Klein body as a brush

• Ana Medieta performances

• Ron Athey’s performances

• Trina Merry’s Street Art camouflage bodypainting 

• Liu Bolins invisible man paintings 

Some of the most viral body painters in the world are

Johannes Stoetter, Alexa Meade,  Mimles, Joanne Gair, Liu Bolin, Trina Merry, Vanessa Davis, Craig Tracy, Emma Hack, Kay Pike, Emma Fay, Carolyn Roeper, Gesine Marwedel, Jen the Bodypainter, and Natalie Fletcher. These artists use bodypaint to create op art and surrealistic artworks that make the viewer do a “double-take”. 

We are proud to be in conversation with the artists working with this fringe medium to create hyperrealistic, interdisciplinary art that incorporate those grey areas where technology and human intimacy intersect, where performance art, painting, sculpting, photography, and video merge and where optical illusion artwork comes to life as contemporary ephemeral art.  

How to use Bodypaint

Bodypaint is applied to the skin. Fine artists use this medium to express ideas, using the body expressively as a brush or canvas, whereas makeup artists use it decoratively to creative shocking transformations. 

Bodypaint is activated by water or alcohol and is applied with a brush, sponge, airbrush, or other painting tools (sticks, fingers, etc). It takes technical skill and specialized training to learn how to apply bodypaint. Artists learn not only technical painting skills but model care, hygiene and safety issues, and how to create a safe and compliant environment for the production cast and crew. Bodypaint classes can be taken at bodypaint festivals and makeup schools but are most commonly learned in apprenticeships or private workshops with skilled bodypaint artists. 

Bodypaint is a temporary marking on the body using non-toxic paint that is safe for skin. Waterbased bodypaint lasts 12 hours whereas alcohol or silicone-based bodypaint can last a few days if desired.