Amy E. Fraser's Book: Dissecting The Western Woman Artist; An Artist’s Dialogue

Skin, by a most basic definition, is the body's covering. It has been referred to as hide, pelt, coat, peel, rind, husk, hull, shell, pod, case, sheath or integument. Our skin is the most obvious body part that defines us as human. Skin is the surface layer of a human, as in an investing membrane, similar to the rind of a fruit, or a film on a liquid. Skin is our outer coating; it separates us from one another as it surrounds and isolates each body.

Some believe that skin is superficial, that it is not profound or substantial. In this culture we believe that beauty can be 'skin deep', unimportant, if not accompanied by intelligence and character. We make it by the 'skin' of our teeth, people get under our skin and some people are said to have thick or thin skin. When something is of no consequence, we respond that it is 'no skin off my back'. Christians believe that the flesh can be evil and ungodly. Some people hunger for flesh, others believe the flesh is weak. When revenge is called for, the victim asks for a pound of flesh. People eat skin. It can be bitten, sucked, bruised, broken and healed. Some people enjoy having their skin whipped and beaten. Others decorate their skin with elaborate tattoos. Some people bare their flesh. Others keep their flesh covered, sheltered, protected and hidden.

At times, skin appears to possess a life of its own; it can be warm, hot, sweaty, frozen, cold and dead. Skin can crawl, be covered in goose-bumps, shiver, shake, sting and prickle. Skin is thought to be unstable, unpredictable, and unforgiving. Skin bears grudges, leaves scars, it can crack and weep. Skin bleeds, scabs, changes, sheds, grows, lives and dies.

The appearance of one's skin can be dry, dirty, oily, sweet, creamy, fresh, moist, milky, pink, raw, red, yellow, orange, black, brown, blue, green, purple or white. Sometimes skin can be hard, thick, thin or callused. Skin can be sensual, sexual, seductive, desirable, disgusting or scary. Skin is described as soft or rough, beautiful or ugly or masculine or feminine.

When I think of skin, I think of how fragile it is. I think of how easily it can be scarred, scraped and torn. It is often burned, cut, graphed, treated, tucked, stretched and filled with liquids and fat.

Skin is the body's container; it is how others see us. Skin can be an immediate indication to an individual's race, age, lifestyle and state of health. Skin exhibits inner turmoil. Stress and puberty are expressed through pimples. Alcoholism can be revealed by broken blood vessels and a red nose. A smoker's skin is often gray and heavily lined. A person who is malnourished will have skin with an unhealthy appearance. Freckles, scars, moles, birthmarks, aging and wrinkled skin are either prideful and give us character, or, can be a source of angst. However, the skin does not represent who we are, it simply covers and protects what we are made of. Nonetheless, our skin affects how we feel and what we think of ourselves.

One of the most controversial issues concerning the topic of skin is the exposure of it, nudity. Western/Christian culture has portrayed the flesh as evil. In Christianity, the body is the enemy of the pious soul. Woman became the devil, embodying the temptations of the world in her sinful flesh. Man, believing himself to be the opposite of woman, ignored the reality of his own human flesh. Man chose to project all of his fears, disgust and hatred onto woman. The Christian myth of woman's evil nature has justified man's privileges and authorized abuse of women. Christian society imposed shame and hatred upon woman and reduced her to the limiting roles of the virgin or the whore.

Female flesh was not always viewed negatively. Prior to Christianity, as far back as the Paleolithic and Old Stone Age, female nudity played a significant and respectable part in most pagan religious practices. The concept of ritual nudity sounds absurd from a Western perspective, given Christianity's conservative influence. In the West, we have been brainwashed into believing in woman's 'natural' inclination to evil, as well as influenced by woman's lowly position as a sexual object. However, the main point is that this belief was not always so. Female nudity is a taboo solely because Christianity imposed restrictions on the flesh in an attempt to limit and control womens' power.

In paganism, ritual nudity is an ancient tradition. In many ancient cultures a woman's sexuality and sensuality were used in order to make a point, lighten sadness or cause laughter. There are many examples of 'obscene' goddesses hidden away under Western cultures shaming influences. Today, in Western culture, female nudity (exposing one's sex) has unfortunately become a dirty, offensive, vulgar and pornographic practice rather than a healing and sacred act.

Celts believed that nudity offered supernatural protection and frequently went into battle naked, covered only by war paint and tattoos. In Ancient Egypt, the rites of Osiris were performed naked because the removal of clothing had symbolic meaning. It is commonly known that Egyptians were comfortable with their own bodies and were not offended by the nudity of others. Nakedness, in its correct place (such as work, home or ritual) was not regarded in any way as shocking or indecent. Tomb owners showed no false modesty when depicting scenes of daily life. They portrayed fisherman and other workers in the nude because wearing clothing in these occupations would have been inappropriate to the tasks.

Another example of ritual nudity is still performed today in the Wiccan religion. Wicca is a modern religion that has adopted many ancient pagan practices that respect nature and the goddess. In this religion, the initiate must be willing to remove her clothing in order to be allowed into the coven. This action symbolizes that the individual is willing to cast aside her persona and enter the circle as she first entered the world, naked and free from pretense.

Most Wiccan rites are performed nude (or skyclad) because Wiccans believe that nudity separates them from their normal everyday personas. Dancing and chanting also helps the members enter into a deeper state of consciousness. The body relaxes and the group visual imagery becomes vivid and powerful. The coven jointly creates the image of what they would like to happen and at this point the power of their unclothed bodies releases the energy into the environment (instead of into their clothing). They believe their everyday clothing inhibits the release of this energy.

These nude religious rites are generally performed during a full moon because of the belief that the powers of the moon can be used to energize. It is said that the skyclad body can detect very subtle changes in the earth's magnetism that are caused by the lunar cycle. Practitioners of Wicca open themselves up to the mental and physical effects of the moon; they believe their physical and magical abilities become greater at the time of a full moon. The moon's powerful and often bizarre affect on the mentally unstable has been well documented. However, the full nature of connections between the lunar cycle and events in our psychic and physical worlds has yet to be explored.

I include this discussion of the moon's powers to establish woman's ancient connection to this symbol and to illustrate the purpose and history behind ritual nudity. Female nudity does not automatically imply pornographic intent or oppression of women. It is the action of the figure, setting and intention of the artist that defines the status of the nude. I think these factors are important to keep in mind when viewing not only my works but also the works of others.

I (generally) prefer to represent the women in my work as nude not only for the religious history but because clothing can make the female figure more fetishized, sexualized and objectified than the natural state of the nude. Clothing serves the basic function of protecting the naked body from the elements while preserving modesty by concealing those parts of the body which society prefers to leave to the imagination. Clothing also sends clear social signals indicating such diversities as gender, social status, occupation, and even religious persuasion. The function of ornamental attire has a very complex and religious significance with certain primitive cultures but, most often, the purpose of such attire is to accomplish the metamorphosis of a woman into an idol.

Throughout the history of Western culture, women's clothing fashions have been devoted to exploiting, enhancing and reshaping feminine curves. Woman has been shifted, stretched, pinched, plumped, fragmented and framed for Western aesthetics, allowing society to remove all that is natural, and contain the 'animal crudity' of her womanly flesh. Women can become paralyzed by inconvenient clothing and Christianity's rules of propriety. Constricting and oppressive clothing was a crime committed against woman in the fear and disgust of female flesh, an attempt to deny their own embodiment.

From a practical standpoint, I chose to represent the female figure without clothing, because clothing styles can date a work. The intention of my nude figure is to represent a universal woman, without a specific culture, time, place, or race. She is the woman within us all, regardless of age, size, skin color, sexual preference or social status.

Feminism And Female Nudity

Identification of the female body with nature, generation and the instinctual life has become an important area of investigation for contemporary feminism. However, many feel that identifying woman with nature and imaging femininity in its instinctive, enigmatic, sexual and destructive aspects places female artists in an impossible bind in which femininity and art become self canceling. For many decades, women artists have struggled against the cultural identification of the female with the biological nature of the body because this association has been used to assign woman a negative role in culture. Society enforces the belief that men are rational and women are intuitive, expressive and dominated by their feelings and biological roles. Western culture encourages the belief in woman's inability to participate in the production of culture because of her ties to nature and her lack of cognitive insight.

Militant feminists argue against the representation of female nudes in art because they believe that male artists generally present women as powerless and sexually subjugated. They believe that male artists reduce woman to mere flesh and that the female subject is rendered as an obedient animal, powerless before the male artist and viewer. It is said that her body is contorted according to the dictates of his erotic will and he annihilates all that is human about his female opponent. They also state that the male artist's representation of the nude female body denies her freedom and increases his own.

The Purpose Of Female Nudity In My Own Art

The nude woman in my work has nothing to fear by anyone's gaze. She belongs to herself; she has acquired her own independence and has no need for masculine protection. The exhibition of her unveiled body becomes a display of art on her own terms. It is an expression of her courage and audacity. Her nudity is something to be feared and admired. She unveils herself with what others assume to be arrogant pride because she is clothed in her beauty, intelligence and strength. She has no need of approval. She refuses to be uncertain of herself at the moment of opposing judgment and verdict. She is exposed to their gaze; yet, she yields up her flesh without defense. Her flesh is the object that others respond to and see, but, it is of no concern to her. Her flesh is not a defilement, it is her means of joy. Her love and acceptance of her embodiment is her way to pass beyond the horizons of the unenlightened.

Nudity in my work is not for the sake of voyeuristic eroticism. Nudity in a revised feminist context takes on more significant implications. As the woman confronts the viewer with her naked body, she is taking the 'to-be-looked-at-ness' that conventionally constitutes femininity into her own control. Her exhibition is an act of defiance, a confrontation as well as an expression of her feminine power and freedom. By displaying herself in this context, woman is able to negate voyeuristic pleasure and instill a heightened consciousness of her true powers. She turns the eroticism of the spectacle into a deliberate demonstration of and against the patriarchal order that has threatened to crush her. The ultimate gesture of defiance is to demonstrate with one's own life. She signifies the challenge by fronting, facing and daring Western convention with the self assurance of her blatant nudity. This makes the onlooker aware of the sensation of being looked on by her, a gaze both intense and discomforting.

Beyond Nudity

The beautiful substance stretched over my figures' large, pendulous breasts, curvaceous thighs, and ample buttocks, the luscious coating which clings tightly to long fingers, curling toes, pointy elbows, knobby knees, seductive shoulders and elegant ankles, and the soft wrapping that surrounds stomachs, backs and faces is known to most of us as skin. As expressed above, the exposure of this important substance deeply concerns the minds of Western culture. However, beyond the issue of nudity, skin is a substance of great significance.

In my work, flesh is a container in which I am able to package and present my message of femininity and power. The container's surface has no rules or limits because my imagination is limitless. In fact, part of my message has to do with breaking the rules, boundaries and limitations of traditional Western thought.

The colors I choose for my figures skin are unnatural to most common representations of the flesh. The women of my world grace the canvas in flesh created from deep sea blues, shimmering purples, reptilian greens, vibrant yellows, meaty pinks, steely blacks, ghostly whites and earthly reds. My choice in skin color evolves from many reasons. Sometimes the colors represent a mood, a temperature, a season, an element or a time of day. The color may integrate the figure into nature or oppose her to the surroundings. The color often serves as part of a story, the image's message or sensation. Color has multiple meanings and uses and each time it can represent something separate from the time before it. Staying away from natural flesh tones enables me to remove my figure from stereotypes, judgments or misconceptions about race. Instead, the focus is on the fact of our similarities, expressing that underneath the flesh (regardless of its color), we are all the same.

The texture of the skin ranges from sand to silk. Sometimes the flesh on my figures appears to be solid as if carved from wood or stone. At other times it has a transparent quality as if made from water, glass or mist. The range of textures and colors illustrates for the viewer that these women are more than a hunk of vulnerable exposed flesh. They are purposely participating in a celebration of their embodiment.

Many variations of the flesh are depicted in the painting examples shown on AmyEFraser.com. For instance, the women in Entangled Void, Frozen Anticipation and Fertile Mind have wood-like skin. In one painting, the figures' surfaces look as if they could be old smooth bark. In another, they appear to be young trees, stripped of their natural protection, and left to the elements to endure. I believe these woody idols trigger an unconscious religious response in the viewer. The viewer is transported to a time when people worshipped trees and respected nature, built elaborate totems, danced around May Poles and carved magical images into sacred wood. Another very different example of skin is in Hatchery. This piece feels even more primal, guiding the viewer to a time shortly after we evolved from the sea. The figures' salmony-textured flesh clings to their bony fish-like structures. Newborns are mass produced, clumped and gelatinous, like fish eggs waiting to hatch. The thoughts and images inspired by the flesh described in Entangled Void, Hatchery, Frozen Anticipation and Fertile Mind, are only one interpretation. The only limits are those put on the imagination.

Through reinvisioning the colors and properties of female flesh, I attempt to create an image of woman that is timeless and universal. She is a woman without race, culture or age. Her body is free from freckles, scars and birthmarks that could define her as a particular individual. She is free from stereotypes, labels and cultural expectations. She has the potential to represent any woman and every woman. She is a symbol of freedom, femininity and strength. As this symbol, she could be a Chinese Empress, an African Queen, a Canadian Mountie, a Celtic Warrior, an ancient goddess or the woman next door. Her identity is left up to the viewers imagination.