Body painting is not always large pieces on fully nude bodies, but can involve smaller pieces on displayed areas of otherwise clothed bodies. There has been a revival of body painting in Western society since the 1960s, in part prompted by the liberalization of
social mores regarding
nudity and often comes in
sensationalist or
exhibitionist forms. Even today there is a constant debate about the legitimacy of body painting as an art form. The current modern revival could be said to date back to the
1933 World's Fair in Chicago when
Max Factor Sr. and his
model Sally Rand were arrested for causing a public disturbance when he body-painted her with his new make-up formulated for
Hollywood films. Body art today evolves to the works more directed towards personal
mythologies, as
Jana Sterbak,
Rebecca Horn,
Michel Platnic,
Youri Messen-Jaschin or Javier Perez. protest against fur Body painting is sometimes used as a method of gaining attention in political protests, for instance those by
PETA against
Burberry.
Joanne Gair is a body paint artist whose work appeared for the tenth consecutive year in the 2008
Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue. She came to prominence with an August 1992
Vanity Fair ''
Demi's Birthday Suit cover of Demi Moore. Her Disappearing Model was part of an episode of Ripley's Believe It or Not!''.
Festivals Body painting festivals happen annually across the world, bringing together professional body painters and keen amateurs. Body painting can also be seen at some
football matches, at
rave parties, and at certain
festivals. The
World Bodypainting Festival is a three-day festival which originated in 1998 and which has been held in
Klagenfurt, Austria since 2017. Participants attend from over fifty countries and the event has more than 20,000 visitors; the associated World Bodypainting Association promotes the art of bodypainting. Body painting festivals that take place in North America include the North American Body Painting Championship, Face and Body Art International Convention in
Orlando, Florida, Bodygras Body Painting Competition in
Nanaimo, BC and the Face Painting and Body Art Convention in
Las Vegas, Nevada. Australia also has a number of body painting festivals, most notably the annual Australian Body Art Festival in
Eumundi, Queensland and the Australian Body Art Awards. In Italy, the
Rabarama Skin Art Festival (held every year during the Summer and Autumn, with a tour in the major Italian cities), is a different event focused on the artistic side of body painting, highlighting the emotional impact of the painted body in a live performance more than the decorative and technical aspects of it. This particular form of creative art is known as "Skin Art".
Fine art The 1960s supermodel
Veruschka has inspired bodypaint artists, after influential images of her appeared in the 1986 book
Transfigurations by photographer
Holger Trulzsch. Other well-known works include
Serge Diakonoff's books
A Fleur de Peau and
Diakonoff and
Joanne Gair's
Paint a licious. More recently Dutch art photographer
Karl Hammer has created combinations of body painting and narrative art (
fantastic realism). Following the already established trend in Western Europe, body painting has become more widely accepted in the United States since the early 1990s. In 2006 the first gallery dedicated exclusively to fine art body painting was opened in New Orleans by World Bodypainting Festival Champion and Judge,
Craig Tracy. The
Painted Alive Gallery is on Royal Street in the
French Quarter. In 2009, the late-night talk show
Last Call with Carson Daly featured the New York-based artist Danny Setiawan who creates reproductions of masterpieces by famous artists such as
Salvador Dalí,
Vincent van Gogh, and
Gustav Klimt on human bodies. Since 2005 the Australian visual artist
Emma Hack has been creating photographs of painted naked human bodies that visually merge with a patterned background wall inspired by the wallpaper designs of
Florence Broadhurst. Hack is best known for the
Gotye music video for the song "
Somebody That I Used to Know", which uses
stop-motion animation body painting and has received over 800 million views on
YouTube.
Michel Platnic is a French–Israeli
contemporary visual artist known for his "living paintings". He uses multiple mediums including photography, video, performance body-painting and painting. Platnic builds three-dimensional cinema sets for his video and photography work and then paints the bodies of living models he places within the sets. Using this technique, Platnic brought to life several scenes of paintings made famous by artists
Francis Bacon,
Egon Schiele,
David Hockney and
Lucian Freud and placed them in a different context. Los Angeles artist,
Paul Roustan, is known for his work in body painting and photography which spans both the fine art and commercial worlds. His body painting has received numerous awards, including winner of the North American Body Paint Championships.
Trina Merry is a body painter known for camouflaging models into settings, backgrounds and, in her "Lust of Currency" series, famous paintings. Merry's collection was exhibited during Miami
Art Basel in 2017 and at the Superfine! New York art fair in May 2018. Peruvian artist
Cecilia Paredes is known for her style of painting her own body to camouflage herself against complex floral backgrounds and natural landscapes.
In the commercial arena , a fan of the Indian cricket team, travels to all Indian home games with his body painted as the
Indian flag, along with the number of his idol
Sachin Tendulkar Professional artists are employed as body painters for television commercials. For example, models were painted to look like trees as part of a TV advertising campaign for
Natrel Plus. Still photography of body painting is also used in print advertising, with hundreds of images of body painting appearing in magazines every year. Body painters also frequently work in the film industry, especially in science fiction, with body painting used to create elaborate alien designs. The
Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue, published annually, has frequently featured a section in which body-painted models appear to be wearing swimsuits or sports jerseys.
Playboy magazine has frequently made use of body painted models. In the 2005
Playmates at Play at the Playboy Mansion calendar, all the
Playmates appeared in bikinis apart from Playmates
Karen McDougal and
Hiromi Oshima, who instead had painted-on bikinis. The success of body painting has led to many notable international competitions and a specific trade magazine (
Illusion Magazine) for this industry, showcasing work around the world. ==Face painting==