Category Archives: Colleagues & Friends

New Faces — Faces At Play: Face Painting images of Sports, Dance and Physical Activities

In my Transformations Facepainting company, we’ve set a goal for ourselves this year to match the way we paint faces to suit events with special themes, working to alter both the imagery we use and the style of the facepainting. It’s a way to be more supportive to the goals of these events and also a way to push ourselves into new directions. Earlier this October, we painted at the Summit Medical Group Sports and Healthy Living Fair ( http://www.summitmedicalgroup.com/about/ ), which is designed to get kids inspired to do sports and other physical activities to stay healthy. Jennifer, Britt and I decided we’d ask the kids and adults we painted about what physical activities they enjoy doing, what kind of active games they play outside or if they play any sports ‚ and then we’d turn their answer into their face design. It led to a lot of new, off-the-cuff designs. We had fun, we tried new things and learned from each other’s experiments, and we had people standing around to watch and see what new idea we’d come up with next — which is a large part of what we want to achieve with our approach to facepainting as a performance art, to make it as exciting to watch as to participate.

I was particularly taken by the work that Jennifer and Britt did. There’s a playfulness to the designs they painted that perfectly matched the “active play” concept of the Health Fair, and which seemed so appropriate to the kids we were painting. Whereas I was too concrete in my use of figures, both Britt and Jennifer let their figures bend and float on the face for a lyric, “childlike” effect — in the style of the illustrations of Tar Beach by Faith Ringgold ( www.faithringgold.com/ ), or the floating figures of a Chagall painting. Although the individual faces were quite beautiful, especially as they both use colors so well, the impact of this playful approach was best seen over the collective effect of the day’s faces, so I’ve put some of the fotos together as a slideshow.

a girl on monkey bars

Jennifer's "Swan Lake" - such a nice idea I tried it myself at my next event

One of the things I appreciate most about having a company of talented artists is the inspiration I gain working beside them. Britt painted this girl jumping rope early at the event, and I made a point of trying the idea myself so that I can remember it and use it again.

From "Tar Beach" by Faith Ringgold

  

http://www.agostinoarts.com

From African Masks to Abercrombie & Fitch

Abercrombie & Fitch Spring Quarterly 2000 cover, photograph by Bruce Weber

by Christopher Agostino

From early on I was taking inspiration for face designs from the makeup and mask art of other cultures. During  the summer of 1999, I was able to initiate my company of artists in this process as we painted faces in African Mask inspired styles over 8 weekends for the opening of the Congo Gorilla Rainforest exhibit at the Bronx Zoo http://www.wcs.org/ .  None of the culturally inspired faces we paint can really be “authentic,” removed as they are from the culture that gives them meaning, so taking a traditional art as source material needs to be done with an understanding that we are artists finding inspiration in a visual image and we can claim no ownership of the intrinsic cultural content of that image. During the “Congo Summer” of 1999, I sometimes questioned the propriety of my being a white American in New York painting these wonderful African images, especially on the beautiful black faces they might be said to really belong to. It’s a tricky question I frequently confront as an artist and storyteller whose work includes cultural sources, and I try to be open about it. I was very gratified once when a woman trusted me enough to ask me to paint a Maasai design on her son’s face, telling me that this was his heritage but he knew nothing about it, so she wanted me to paint him and tell him the significance of the design.

Traditional Maasai bodyart, from a photograph by Art Wolfe in "Tribes"

Photo from Art Wolfe's tribes of a decorated Maasai.

Part of the profound beauty of a painted face is that you can’t see the color of the skin beneath. All you see are the eyes — the very human eyes. My explorations into the earliest human art and cultures convince me that we all truly are one people, sharing a universal view of life and our core aspirations, originating in a single fundamental culture — which anthropologists today tell us began with a small group of modern humans in Africa and subsequently spread around the world and diversified. By using cultural images, I believe we remind our public audiences of the unity of the family of humanity.

Whereas all of modern humanity may have sprung from that one, small unified group of humans in prehistoric Africa (perhaps, scientists say, a group of as few as 600 individuals), to use the term today “African Masks” or “African Art” is an inaccurate shorthand at best. Africa is a continent of many diverse countries and ethnic groups, and the mask and body arts of these cultures vary greatly. We found a wealth of images, styles and conceptual approaches to transforming a human face in our search for inspiration as we painted faces at the zoo that summer of 1999, from the rock paintings of the San bushmen of Southern Africa through the abstract spirit masks of equatorial Africa and north to the henna designs of the Berber. I have come to see that the experimentation that summer gave my company of artists a new overall perspective on facepainting as a larger art, including a foundation in stylizing and abstracting designs that take the artist beyond realist imagery.

My photo of the Abercrombie & Fitch model before they costumed him

In October of that year, the photographer Bruce Weber saw me working in this stylized “tribal” approach as I was painting at another New York event, and he hired me to paint a group of models in Florida for the Abercrombie & Fitch Spring Quarterly 2000. The foto he chose for the cover was of a model painted in a spirit mask inspired baboon design I had been experimenting with all that summer.

And it was while I was researching the mask and sculptural arts of Africa that summer that I read about how in 1905 Africa again became a source of inspiration for world culture as traditional sculptures and masks made their way to Paris and changed the approach of a whole generation of Western artists at the dawn of the Modern Art movement. As Frank Willet states in African Art: An Introduction (Thames & Hudson,1993), when masks from Africa were seen by Picasso and Matisse, “the revolution of twentieth-century art was underway.” 

"Spirit Mask" inspired baboon design from that Congo Summer, 1999.

That was a spark that set me into an ongoing exploration of this linkage between traditional and modern art, primarily through a series of fine art bodypaintings in which I blend iconic modern art images with the tribal bodyart and mask images that inspired them: the “Modern Primitive” series.

The first third of my book is about the lessons I’ve learned from cultural sources. To learn about my book, and about the other books mentioned here, go to: https://thestorybehindthefaces.com/books/

For a related blog post, see: From a mask to a painted face: https://thestorybehindthefaces.com/?s=from+a+mask+to+a+painted+face

The Omo River region in Ethiopia holds several cultures that still maintain some bodyart traditions. These geometric patterns in earth tones may be so different than the facepainting most people are used to, yet they make for very pleasant looking finished faces, and I find people are very receptive to being painted in this way.

This Surma photo from the wonderful book "African Ceremonies" has proven to be a style of design that adult women enjoy wearing. In the photo on the right, I copied the pattern of the original design while altering the colors because I was painting it on a caucasian face.

The designs of Surma males are different, in this example the men have covered their whole bodies in a white clay, then scrape the design into that white base so that their dark skin shows through to make the geometric patterns. In a regular facepainting setting I can't really imitate the scraping technique, so I imitate the pattern instead.

This face painting was for a demonstration on African bodyart for a student group at Columbia University, based on a sketch of Lobi facepainting from the book "Body Decoration".

Combining imagery with a simplified "Tribal" style

Spending 8 weekends working in one style allowed for a lot of possible areas of exploration, including trying faces using just pieces of designs or patterns from African cloth and masks.

Another design from a cultural source that makes a pleasant face for an adult. The original came from one photo I saw of bodypainting among the Loma people for a girl's coming of age ceremony, in which she will be painted in plant dyes that slowly fade over a few weeks, and once they have faded she will be eligible for courtship. Again, though, I have to approach this image primarily as visual inspiration for I have no full understanding of the cultural context.

We have also had the chance to bring an "African style" to theme events at other venues, including the Coney Island Aquarium where I painted these two stylized Starfish faces.

here's my friend Kate painting during the Congo Summer event. Having 10 artists at the zoo for 8 weekends gave me the chance to invite in some guest artists like Kate to work with us and try our Transformation approach.

http://www.agostinoarts.com

Face Painting Freedom is on the Rise

Snow Leopard

Werewolf Moon

by Christopher Agostino

News from the front: as we were facepainting at an event yesterday I noticed a marked increase in the understanding and acceptance by the people on line that we would be surprising everyone with what we paint on them, that everyone would get a unique, creative design. Beyond acceptance, there was a progressive sense of enthusiasm about the prospect of being surprised among many people waiting to be painted. The event was the North Hempstead Beach Family Festival and it’s an event we’ve painted at before. Whenever we return to an event our clients and the participants have an increased understanding of the creative approach we take, because they’ve seen it already. Yesterday, however, the general understanding I sensed in the crowd went beyond those people who knew our work — there seemed to be an overall feeling amongst the people waiting that getting a surprise facepainting would be fun.

I formed this impression over the course of the event through a number of small incidents. More than once, I heard an adult on line explaining to their child that they couldn’t be Spiderman because we would be surprising them with the design we painted, and doing it with real enthusiasm, saying “isn’t that a fun idea”. I had a few kids — friends or siblings who were being painted at the same time — talking to each other about how they’d have a contest to guess what each had been turned in to once they were all done. Several times a parent would bring a mirror over to show their kid the face in process, and the kid would say “no, I want to be surprised!” And for a portion of the day we had the occurrence that is part of the reason why we choose to paint this way: an audience — a group of adults and kids standing and watching us paint, remaking to each other about “what do you think this face is going to be?” and “look, what he’s doing now”.

So, why are we seeing this increase in excitement over being surprised? A large part, I think, is because we’ve been doing this at most events now for a few years and as a facepainting company we are increasingly confident in this approach —my artists know that it works, know that it can be creatively exciting both for them and for the people we paint — and confidence brings success. Our enthusiasm breeds their enthusiasm. And with practice we can present the concept better to the people on line and to the kids and adults as we paint them. For example, we’ve all learned that it’s better to tell a child they will be surprised before they have a chance to say they want to be Spiderman.

a standard display sign for public events

I also think that there is a gradual increase in the expectations of the public regarding facepainting. There are so many more good facepainters working these days that the standards are rising. There is an expectation of quality, and with it an understanding that facepainting (and bodypainting) can be very artistic. Mine is not the only company of quality painters in the NYC area, and people are getting used to facepainters who are artists. The most effective way to raise the status of facepainting as an art and industry is to paint exciting faces. Going back 25 years or more, over a course of years, I saw a distinct shift in the understanding within this NY market of what facepainting could be like as I and a number of artists I worked with or knew of began to paint full faces instead of cheek art. For quite a while I had to explain the difference to potential clients and event producers, and explain things like how a full face can be painted as quickly as a cheek design, along with selling them on why they want full faces at a large event because the impact is so much greater. Now, most clients expect full faces and I don’t need to explain those things anymore.

At the North Hempstead Beach Family festival we used what has become our standard approach to event facepainting. We asked each person we painted if they wanted to be “nice” or “spooky” and then surprised them with the design we painted. We didn’t take any requests. Our company motto is that “every face is different, every face is a surprise!” and so each artist, over the course of the event, will paint a wide range of ideas and styles of design. I feel that it is the collective effect of all the faces painted that is the essence of the art we present at an event, moreso than the results on any one face. If you want to see an example of what this approach results in at an event, in addition to the fotos here, check out the video slideshow from a similar event a couple of years ago, one of several “Every Face” videos I’ve posted to You Tube.

Giving everyone a surprise doesn't mean that the artist should be surprised too. We don't try to invent completely new faces all the time. This is a variation of the Chinese Opera design discussed a few posts earlier, a type of design I've been painting forever. This time transformed into a "Nature Goddess"

Likewise, this face is a variation on the "Spirit Mask" visual concept

I usually paint two people at a time, in order to paint quickly while still giving the base colors time to dry a bit as I work. So I'll put the base colors on one face, then start the 2nd face, and go back and forth like that. Yesterday, I sometimes played a creativity game of painting the two faces in variations of one concept. Here the concept I had in mind was a design motif, "spirals". I used the same colors for both faces. The girl on the left was wearing a very wild coat so I made her face loose and abstract. For the face on the right I took the concept into something more concrete, using the same colors and the spiral motif to make the sun.

Both of these girls wanted to be spooky, so while painting the two of them I used the same colors in two approaches: a tribalized spirit mask and a stylized vampire face I call the "Night Queen".

Two variations on Day of the Dead imagery, painted simultaneously, the one on the right from a classic Mexican folklore image of an upperclass woman skeleton in a fancy dress and flowered hat, called "La Catrina" in an illustration by Diego Rivera - this face was an idea that just occurred to me as I was painting the first girl. Part of the value of painting two people at once is that it gives me more time to think about each face as I go back and forth. Part of the fun of painting two people at once is that they get to watch the process they are going through up close on the face of the other person. These two girls were friends and excited about sharing the act of being transformed.

Sea Monster

Flamingo Sunset

Mermaid. My simplified adaptation of a design I saw by another facepainter.

"Imaginary Mermaid" - I give names to some of my more abstract designs like this, both so that I can tell a child a name for what I've painted on them and so that I have a shorthand key for ideas I'm working on. When i paint at an event, I have a written list of 50 or so ideas, ranging from specific things like "Elephant princess" to styles such as "loose" or motifs like "spirals".

Skull Zombie. In order to keep the ideas flowing and move myself through variations, I take a lot of inspiration from what a person is wearing.

Dinosaur Sunset. One thing w've learned is that it is possible to paint things you can be pretty confident that kids will like to wear while still offering a wide range of creative designs.

Here is a video of just about Every Face I painted at the Summer Solstice event at Socrates Sculpture Park in 2008:

http://www.agostinoarts.com

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