celebration of the animals- facepainting 1992
We were our own first works of art. That is a profound way for a facepainter to view what he does: it was here from the very beginning. Anthropologists say that we humans painted and marked ourselves before we ever began to alter the world around us.
Transforming ourselves is a fundamental human art. We take control of ourselves, we differentiate ourselves from being merely animals, when we mark ourselves. We prove that we are aware of our place in the world and that we can affect it when we transform ourselves. It is part of being human.
Face and body art is a universal art. Every culture uses makeup, body art, masks or costumes to change human appearance. The reasons for the transformations in different cultures are as varied as the images they create. In traditional cultures, tattoo and scarification can mark an individual’s place in their society and their accomplishments. They can signify a change in status such as an initiation completed or a marriage. Face and body painting are more transient and can convey a wide range of meanings, from ritual and celebratory to the purely aesthetic. Facepainting can disguise the wearer and allow an individual to create a new identity. Theatrical makeup and masks allow a performer to become anything, even living gods that bring a mythical world to life in a physical form. In tribal rituals gods and spirits are also brought to life by masked dancers so bizarrely disguised they are unrecognizable as human. The possibilities for transformation are as limitless as the human imagination.
This is the way I approach a face when I paint it. I can do anything. The person I paint can become anything. There is an endless wealth of imagery from thousands of years of human history. There are the thousands of faces I have painted through my own history. And there is the face before me. Each face is very new and very old.
Related articles
- The Kinetic Art of Face Painting – Pt.1: Sending Art off into the World (thestorybehindthefaces.com)
- Why Body Painting? – 3: Origins – Touching Ancient Sources (thestorybehindthefaces.com)
- First Night Hartford – Face Painting Adults and the Final Faces of 2011 (thestorybehindthefaces.com)
- Why Body Painting? – 4: Radical Act – The essential celebration of our humanity / the ultimate modern art (thestorybehindthefaces.com)