"bone island weekend, nude male show & sale"

Like I mentioned in my last post, July has turned out to be a fairly creative month. Just after the 4th, a friend came by the studio to tell me about an upcoming exhibition at the
"Art 612 Gallery" on Fleming Street.
He suggested I might want to do a few pieces for the show and when I asked him what the theme of the exhibition was, he told me, a celebration of the male form.

I was intrigued; not since my years at The Art Students League doing figure drawings, portraits and life studies had I thought much about working with nude forms. I slept on the idea for a night, thought it might be fun and, the next morning, decided to move forward.
At that point, the show was less than two weeks away, I had a plateful of design projects working simultaneously and so for the sake of time, (time is a design element too) I chose to work with photography rather than acrylics.
I asked a fairly good-bodied friend if he'd sit for me, he agreed and we worked through a long productive afternoon shooting about 80 photographs.

"fantasy" 11" x 14" by Art Winstanley
Matted & framed, limited edition archival print. Available for purchase.

I knew, among the other artists in the show, there would be a few other photographers represented whose work would likely be in the stock and standard, dramatically lit,
black and white genre.
I'll admit that I shot some in the style too but, true to form, I ultimately wanted something other. So over the next week I worked the pictures over in PhotoShop and came away with a dozen finished works that I liked and of those, chose 3 limited edition prints that I would submit to the gallery.

En masse the "Bone Island Weekend Nude Male Show & Sale" made a good showing that ran for a long weekend and sold pretty well for an off-season event.

. . .a word from our sponsor - VIDEO

click th arrow to start video. run time, 1:26

sukhavati

I know I know, I'm cheating again. This is not a photograph but a digital illustration I drew earlier this year (in PhotoShop without using filters). It represents a spiritual state of mind that, hopefully, I am getting closer to.

Sukhavati is a story about Amitabha, the Buddha of immeasurable radiance, whose primary quality is compassion.

When he was on the threshold of illumination, Amitabha vowed that he would not accept illumination for himself unless, through his illumination, he could release all beings from the endless cycle of re-incarnation.

The Gods agreed and, when he did achieve his illumination, there appeared before him a great lotus pond where the jewel of illumination resided in the lotuses. Anyone devoted to Amitabha in their lifetime would no longer be committed to another re-incarnation but would instead be reborn in a closed lotus floating on Amitabha’s lotus pond called Sukavhati, the place of bliss.

Meditating in their lotuses the devotees would hear, on the rippling waters and in the air, only the mantra, "all is impermanent, all is without a self" until finally, they would realize that enlightened truth.

When they did, their lotuses would open and they would be sitting, themselves, as an enlightened Buddhas in meditation; only then to dissolve like a dew drop into the ocean of rapture and transcendence.

Framed & matted, Sukhavati, the finished work, measures 16" x 20". Museum quality prints are available.