Exoskeleton, 1997, bodypaint and photo by Fred Hatt
The human body is magnificent in its structure but fairly bland in coloration. It comes in a range of tones that can be roughly approximated by various ratios of coffee to cream. We admire the spots of the cheetah, the tiling of the giraffe, the patchwork of the calico cat, the bold colors of the mandrill, and the psychedelic riot of tropical birds, fish and lizards. One thing you can say about human nature is that we can’t just leave things as they are. We like colorful, so we shall have colorful. Thus tattooing, body painting and other ways of adding pattern and color to the body are among the earliest and most universal of the arts.
For a long time I’ve been using body paint as a way of exploring the body, its structure and its energy. This post features paintings that have the approach of patterning the body. Sometimes, as in the picture above, I simply stylize the underlying anatomical structures.
One of the most basic characteristics of nearly all vertebrate body structures is bilateral symmetry, so the most basic division of the body is its center line. Below, I’ve made the right half of the body red, and the left half blue.
Bicameral Body, 2001, bodypaint and photo by Fred Hatt
The painting below was made for a performance at Spring Studio by dancer Arthur Aviles. The preparation time was limited, so I simply made a single black line that meandered around the whole body, then painted the area on one side of the body yellow and on the other side blue, with two smaller areas, one on at the heart and another on the head, outlined and filled in in red. Combined with Arthur’s movement, this simple improvised patterning produced visual shapes in motion that were different from the body structures we’re used to seeing.
Earthman, 1997, bodypaint and photo by Fred Hatt
The four-color map theorem is a proven mathematical idea that “given any separation of a plane into contiguous regions, no more than four colors are required to color the regions so that no two adjacent regions have the same color”. Patterning the body can be about dividing it into regions of differing colors, a “body map”. The body map above is essentially just two regions, a yellow and a blue region, each of which has a single red island. The body map below is divided into a symmetrical pattern of regions using three colors, orange, green, and blue.
Faceted, 2001, bodypaint and photo by Fred Hatt
In the painting below, there are are shapes of four colors, red, yellow, blue, and white, against a green background or base color.
Ghost Shreds, 2003, bodypaint and photo by Fred Hatt
This kind of basic patterning, by tracing a wandering path over the surface of the body, then dividing it into different color regions, can be elaborated with a few simple additional strokes into a full-fledged abstract composition.
Modern Jazz, 2001, bodypaint and photo by Fred Hatt
The shapes and strokes are always determined by the three dimensional contours of the body. The brush hand is always sensitive to both the energy and the physical structure of the living body that is the ground of the painting.
Lower Extremities, 1999, bodypaint and photo by Fred Hatt
The underlying structures of energy and anatomy are so beautiful and so complex that any painting can only capture a very simplified response to this rich source material.
Ankh, 2001, bodypaint and photo by Fred Hatt
Serpentine, 1999, bodypaint and photo by Fred Hatt
The remaining patterned body paintings in this post are presented with two photos per painting, showing how different poses reveal different aspects of these paintings as body explorations. This is part of the magic of body painting, that it is made in response to the living energy in the body and is then transformed and brought to life by the movement of that body.
Motley, 1999, bodypaint and photo by Fred Hatt
Motley, 1999, bodypaint and photo by Fred Hatt
The patterns in the painting below are created by placing a hand on the body and painting around the fingers, like how kids are taught to draw a turkey based on a tracing of the hand, but with a more abstract impulse.
Clawmarked, 2009, bodypaint and photo by Fred Hatt
Clawmarked, 2009, bodypaint and photo by Fred Hatt
This painting has a red-orange serpentine shape as its center, with lava-lamp shapes around it in various colors.
Vermilion River Map, 2001, bodypaint and photo by Fred Hatt
Vermilion River Map, 2001, bodypaint and photo by Fred Hatt
In the painting below, there’s a white outline form filled in in various soft iridescent tones.
Cloisonné, 2009, bodypaint and photo by Fred Hatt
Cloisonné, 2009, bodypaint and photo by Fred Hatt
This one’s done with fluorescent paints and photographed under blacklight. The pattern is dense and fragmented.
Neon Creature, 2008, bodypaint and photo by Fred Hatt
Neon Creature, 2008, bodypaint and photo by Fred Hatt
Here’s another swirly patterning in green and blue against a white base, creating a feeling of energy coursing through the body.
Revelry, 2009, bodypaint and photo by Fred Hatt
Revelry, 2009, bodypaint and photo by Fred Hatt
I did the painting and the photography on all the images in this post. I’ve done no digital retouching to the painting – bodies sweat and move and rub against themselves, so body paint tends to smear, and where that’s happened I have not fixed it.
Previous body painting posts include “Textural Bodypaint“, and “Fire in the Belly“, “Personal Painting“, “Dorsal Emblems“, and portfolios here and here.
