As a follow-up on the subject of the insecurity and vulnerability that comes with making personal works, I think this quote from Daniel Benmergui, who makes independent video games, is appropriate. He was responding specifically to the question of video games as art, but I think what he said applies just as much to all forms of art:

“If you don’t feel personally exposed when publishing the game, you did not make art.”

This was posted last week in one of the artist blogs I follow: “May I ask whats your obsession with naked women?” asks one of his readers.

It’s funny that I’ve never been asked that same question, since I also paint a lot of women in various states of undress. I’m probably covered (so to speak) with my watercolor pieces — since those are all technically life drawings and thus fall under the safely acceptable umbrella of “artist study” — but I don’t have the same excuse with my acrylic pieces, which were all done from my imagination, and thus I had to choose that as my subject matter.

To my friends’ credit, none of them have ever gone and asked me, straight up, “What’s the deal with all these naked women?” I think maybe they understand what an uncomfortable question that is. Or maybe it’s just not a big deal to them. I have no idea.

But I’ve thought about it a lot. These feel like very personal pieces for me, but I couldn’t really tell you why. There’s nothing autobiographical about them. There’s no message or statement I’m trying to make. What makes them so personal? I know that when I sit down and just paint for myself, these are the paintings that come out of me, but are they really personal, or are they just paintings of naked women? Do I fall back on the standard excuses — that the female nude has been a favorite subject of artists for thousands of years? Or, even better, that I’m just your average heterosexual male and so of course I like painting naked women?

I don’t know. Maybe. But I think there’s more to it than that.

For one thing, I’m purposely painting these pieces a certain way. I tend not to like painting in an obviously “pin-up” style, and I try to avoid all the usual pin-up tropes, like deliberately sexy poses or staring seductively into the camera (in fact, whenever I can, I usually try to paint them looking away from the camera, or just off-camera). My paintings still feel a little suggestive, sure, I’m not trying to avoid that. But I think my intent is to make it seem like the subjects aren’t aware that anybody is looking, and so maybe they’ll seem a little less fake and posed, and a little more relaxed and natural.

Another thing is that because I’m painting these from my imagination, not from reference, I think it gives them a more personal quality than the ones painted from live models. I don’t know exactly why, because, again, what’s so personal about painting a naked woman? Maybe it lets the piece be closer to my natural drawing style, more stylized, like something out of my sketchbook. Maybe it turns the piece into more of an abstraction, like I’m painting the idea of a woman, rather than any one specific individual. Or maybe it’s that, by creating the entire piece from my imagination, I’m showing you exactly what was going on in my head, and, well, there’s just something very personally revealing about that.

But why is that the image in my head in the first place? Why not flowers or landscapes or people with their clothes on?

Well, I don’t really have a good reason, because I’m honestly still trying to figure it out. I only started this series a year ago, after a long hiatus from traditional painting. And at the time, I was at something of an artistic crossroads, with absolutely no idea what I wanted to do with my art. When I started painting again, it was because I wanted to see what would happen if I just painted for myself for a while.

But I think maybe sometimes you don’t get to decide what a piece is about, even when you’re the artist. Sometimes you just paint what you feel compelled to paint, and only when it’s finished does it reveal to you what it’s about.

This series hasn’t quite revealed its purpose to me yet, but here’s my best guess so far, which is maybe just a variation of the “straight male likes to paint naked women” excuse, but here it is anyway:

I think I’m just trying to paint something beautiful. And maybe this type of female nude — this stylized, abstracted, anti-pin-up woman — is what I think beautiful is.

If that doesn’t make these pieces personal, I don’t know what does.

I have a piece in an upcoming gallery show this October, in which artists from around the nation offer their visual interpretation of the word “Palin.” You can see my piece below, which is probably less political than you might expect.

The exhibit will be at Market Street Gallery, more details as we get closer to the date. Incidentally, the submission window doesn’t close until July 31, so if you, too, make pictures and want to express your reaction to the word “Palin,” by all means, join in.