Artist Research - Cheryl Ann Lipstreu

Cheryl Ann Lipstreu

Cheryl Ann grew up on an Arabian horse farm in Belews Creek, North Carolina. At a very young age she began drawing, and when introduced to oil paint at age 10, fell in love with painting and the art of making art. She has since continued painting as both a lifelong passion and a professional career. Cheryl Ann looks for beauty in everything she does. Traditional in approach yet extremely personal in application, Cheryl Ann’s figure studies, portraits, landscapes and body paintings are effused with emotion and grace, while the love of her work is evident in every piece and in every brushstroke. She strives to capture the true essence of her subject matter with the reflective soul of the colors of her palette. She has received art degrees from Guilford Technical Community College, Pennsylvania College of Art and Design and the Fine Arts League of the Carolinas in Asheville NC. In addition she has completed private apprenticeships with master painters, Senor Javier Pamplona in Madrid, Spain, Master Fresco painters Ben Long IV and Roger Nelson at the Fine Arts League of the Carolinas, and continued her studies with workshops as well as private lessons from Artists Mr. John Cosby, Mr. Tony Griffin and Triple Crown World Champion Body painters Scott Fray and Madelyn Greco of Livingbrush Studios. Currently Cheryl Ann’s focus is on Impressionism, portraiture, plein air painting, still life, landscapes, commissions, and body paintings. She is developing her own signature style while producing new works. 

Artist Research - Emma Hack

Emma Hack

Emma Hack is an Adelaide-based artist working in the unique medium of body paint installation and photography. Exhibiting extensively throughout Australia since 1999, Emma’s astounding artworks have since captured the attention of collectors and art lovers worldwide.

Within the past year, Emma Hack has held successful solo shows at Rebecca Hossack Art Gallery, NYC and London, The Cat Street Gallery, Hong Kong, Linton & Kay Galleries, Perth and Bluerider Art in Taipei as well as hugely successful art fairs in Singapore, Brussels, Aspen, The Hamptons, Hong Kong and Milan.

Emma has received great acclaim for her refined body paint camouflage technique; through a combination of painting on canvas, body painting and studio-based photography, her work evokes a rich array of visual narrative and magical realism.

Best known for her Wallpaper series (2005-2010)- in which she painstakingly camouflaged the human form by hand painting her models into the remarkable designs of the late Florence Broadhurst. Emma Hack’s diverse artwork collections draw inspiration from the unique Australian flora and fauna, as well as Oriental influences.

Emma Hack’s collaboration with Grammy award winning musician Gotye resulted in the iconic, award winning music video for Somebody That I Used to Know, which has been viewed by over 550 million people worldwide, raising her profile in the US, UK and Europe. Emma has since worked on major artistic commissions for Motor Accident Commission, South Australia, where she built a sculpture of 17 bodies, painted as a crashed car, again drawing worldwide attention to her craft. Emma’s recent commission for WA Ballet utilised the form of 21 Ballet dancers to create their upcoming program imagery. 

Emma Hack is represented by galleries throughout Australia, as well as London, New York, Singapore, Taipei and Hong Kong. Her work is held in numerous private and corporate collections globally.

 

Artist Research - Gesine Marwedel

Gensine Marwedel

Gensine Marwedel is a German body painter, I could not find very much information about her, but what I did find was in German, I have tried to translate it as best I could.

Gensine was born in Eckernforde but grew up in Dortmund Germany. She graduated in 2005 and moved to India where she volunteered in a children's home. 

From 2005- 2008 she studied Rehabilitation Education at the University of Dortmund.

During her studies she spent several months in India, where she worked in a children's home with handicapped and autistic children.

She also backpacked across the country with henna art.

Since 2009 she has worked as a therapist in Dortmund. 

''As an artist I was used to painting, wall painting and henna but today I mostly focus mostly on the area of body painting, I am entered in international competitions and events I work for companies and paint for events film and television as well as for private clients. The joy of painting and the work with people for me is always first.

Artist Research - Johannes Stotter

Johannes Stötter

Johannes Stötter is artist, musician and fine art body painter. Born and based in South Tyrol (Italy), he spent his early childhood in the high Alps and grew up with 3 brothers and a sister in a family of musicians. He sings, plays violin, whistle and bouzouki in the Celtic Folk band “Burning Mind“, he studied education and philosophy at the University of Innsbruck, Austria, and was involved in several social projects which he combined with art and music.

As a fully autodidactic artist Johannes developed his painting style and his bodypainting technique without any relation to other bodypainting artists and their work. He joined the international bodypainting community in 2009 at the World Bodypainting Festival in Austria, where he took part at the bodypainting world championship for the first time.

In the following years he won many awards, most notably he was;

 - WORLD CHAMPION 2012, 

- Vice World Champion 2011 and 2014, 

- Italian Champion 2011 and 2013, 

- Winner of the North American Body painting Championship, Atlanta, Georgia, USA 2013 

 - Winner of the “International Fine Art Body painting Award” 2014.

In 2013 he became world famous with his legendary creation of a tropical frog consisting of 5 human bodies, so he made headlines in the world press and was featured in newspapers, magazines and online magazines as New York Post, NewYork Daily News, The Sun, The Times, The Mirror, The Guardian, Dailymail, Bild,Stern, Spiegel, Focus, Süddeutsche Zeitung, View and many more, in TV channels as CNN, BBC, TV Globo, RAI, ZDF, Pro7, RTL, DW, ORF, ntv Japan and many more, as well as in the published books “The Art of Bodypainting” (Peter de Ruiter),“Champions at Heart” (Karala B), “The Human Canvas” (Karala B) and in the Calendar “Painted Bodies” (Weingarten Verlag).

Today Johannes teaches Body painting at the World Body painting Academy – at the WBF (World Body painting Festival) as well as around the world – and Anatomic Body painting at Yoni Academy. He works and exhibits all around the globe in collaboration with his agency wb-production.

Artist Research - Natalie Fletcher

Natalie Fletcher

Natalie Fletcher isn't a highly known artist so I couldn't find an extensive amount of information about her, but this is what her web page says about her... 

''Natalie Fletcher was born in Texas in 1985.  A young Natalie realized, around the age of 5, that drawing was a lot more interesting than Math class, and so it started.  Around the age of 15 she discovered paint.  Little did she know her future and all of her clothes would be covered in it. Natalie moved to Oregon from Texas in 2006 to attend a painting school in Ashland. Oregon had beautiful scenery, a healthy culture and an  outlook of which she took a liking to immediately. In 2010, after graduating from an intense 4-year program, she was presented with a question most people in their mid-twenties are presented with… Now What? What ever she was going to do, she knew it wasn’t going to be in Ashland. So, in 2011 she made a Pin-Up Girl calendar to raise some funds to move. Something about central Oregon was calling to her, so she and her partner moved to Bend. Attempting to find a job, Natalie came across an ad for a body painter. Having little to no experience … she applied. When they requested that she send images of previous work she thought, ” Oh crap, I better paint some bodies!” So she did. She painted 4 bodies, including her own, in a week and sent off the pictures – crossing her fingers. She got the job! After that job, Natalie realized how much she loved it! She loved the interactions and the excitement of painting a human. It was new and fresh and unlike painting on canvas, not a lot of people were doing it in central Oregon. So there it is – Natalie’s risk lead her to finding a passion, and this is just the beginning.''

http://www.artbynataliefletcher.com/about-natalie/

Personally I love Natalie's work the attention to detail amazes me. The way she manages to invlove the background into her images to make them look almost invisible is awe inspiring. 

Artist Research - Chadwick and Spector

Chadwick Gray and Laura Spector

Chadwick Gray and Laura Spector are a pair of artists which originated in New York. Grays body is used as a canvas for Laura, who creates extraordinary paintings with special water based theatre makeup from berlin.  They have visited the likes of the national gallery in Athens and the Victoria and Albert museum in London to find images hidden away from public view for a project called museum anatomy.

The body of work known as Museum Anatomy was began in 1996. Working alongside museum curators from museums in 12 countries, the artists search for pre-19th century paintings, which have been hidden or damaged, many existing in museum storage facilities. After selecting the hidden paintings, the artists create a new work of art, inspired by the original painting onto the human body using special effects make up. The acctual application of the make up onto Chadwicks body is documented with photography. The time taken to create each painting can range between 8 and 15 hours.The final photographs are enlarged and displayed as Contemporary art.

Gray has spent over 800 hours as a living still canvas. The painting they have re-created include some of the following; 

Nell Gwyn as St Catherine  - Sir Peter Lely 

Judith with tge Head of Holofernes - Lucas Cranach the elder

Filippos Margaritis's painting of Sappho Praying to Aphrodite is seen (right), and painted on the body of Chadwick Gray (left)

Saint Agatha by Orazio Riminaldi is pictured (right) on Mr Gray and the painting (left)

 La Modelo Aline Masson by Madrazo y Garreta is seen on the body (left) and the actual painting (right)

 Leda and the Swan by Antonio Allegri da Correggio, painted on the body (left), the actual painting in Berlin, Germany (right)

 Judith With The Head of Holofernes by Lucas Cranach the Elder is seen on Mr Gray's body (left) and the actual painting (right)

                                               Lanna Woman (Wat Umong)  (Above)

Filippos Margaritis's painting of Sappho Praying to Aphrodite (above)