In efforts to break free of drawing whats safe I am currently drawing my first full nude work to be sold at Black Book Gallery, located in Denver, CO.
I knew I wanted to push myself to grow as an artist and a conceptually driven person. It was through recognizing my lack of growth that I decided to go for it. I was ready to draw a full nude to add in this body of work, which was a very exhilarating point to come to for me. I referenced a photo studio mate, Joe Friend took of a model. He showed me this reference he photographed and I was stunned. The model had no tattoos, piercings so it was like staring from a blank canvas which gets me all too stoked to begin the real imaginative part.
Throughout the years building my art career, I can honestly say I played it safe. I understood what people wouldn’t get offended by and told myself to go with those styles. I told myself NOT to push boundaries because it could cause me to lose some of my already build clientele. If these nudes offend anyone, I am sorry ahead of time and respect if you do not agree. Creating this and drawing the full figure feels like the missing piece to my work, I can’t turn back.
I want to create strong female portraits, from these amazing women I am selecting to reference photographs of. (mostly captured by me, in the studio) I’m starving to communicate that feeling of being alive. WE DO NOT SURVIVE by just “trying” to make it by and do okay. We survive by what fills us with passion, outrage, sadness, love, bliss and above all else HOW WE CONNECT TO ONE ANOTHER. Life is about feeling alive, feeling your heart race, tears shed, uncontrollable laughter you can’t hold in and love for one another. Our emotions are a GIFT, every single one of them. The good does not get appreciated or even seen without having known the ugliness.
These works MUST have a darkness to them, a sense of depth that is meant to keep the viewer wondering. To be honest it keeps me wondering too. Just like any human, we all have secrets, questions of life, fears of the unknown, etc. and so does this body of work. The tattoos are a entity of the universe wrapping around the figure like an unshakable force. There is beauty to it while also expressing a level of destruction and terror. Our surroundings, our experiences and our interactions become part of us. We eventually wear these without any awareness in doing so. Unfolding at any given moment we give ourselves away. Our vulnerabilities are hidden, but every so often they sneak out like a branch growing on a tree, watching the leaves mature and then eventually fall.
I am not writer by any means. I am an only an artist. Through creating I feel there is a level of explanation I must share to experience the work on a deeper level.
Thank you for all the continued support and interest in what I do. SO much love to all of you, I wouldn’t be here without you!
Rashelle Stetman