Multi-Body Paintings by NYC Body Painting Artist Trina Merry
“Double your pleasure, double your fun” You’ve heard this one before. It’s often said that two is better than one. I don’t know about better, but it is definitely fun.
I love the concept of multi-body paintings. There’s just something about painting a portion of a completed piece on one person’s body, another part of the picture on someone else’s body and seeing it all come together. It’s a breathtaking moment, watching as your vision comes together right before your eyes.
Multi-body painting is intricate work that involves a lot of different moving pieces, but this type of living art pushes the boundaries of what we know about paintings, sculptures and performance. It is provocative and tantalizing. Mesmerizing and enchanting. Thought-provoking and hair-raising.
Living art can be defined in so many ways because it does not fit in neatly to any box. Photos of my multi-body pieces can be described as living art because my canvas breathes and has a heartbeat, even though the picture is still. Then there are the live performances when an audience gets to watch as all the pieces of the puzzle come together in a frame right before their eyes to create a cohesive body of work. It’s a special type of energy that cannot be duplicated.
Multi-body paintings are always changing and never the same.
I think that’s important to remember because it is necessary to take risks and not stay safe within your medium. I specialize in body painting, but multi-body paintings and live performance art takes my skills to the next level. It puts me out there on display and in a sense makes me just as naked as my models.
It takes courage and sacrifice, but it is completely worth it. It is important to challenge yourself beyond what it safe. If you dream something, act upon it right away because the universe will give you exactly what you need to explore your idea and grow not only as an artist, but as a person.
Whether I am using two models or 10, I always find a way to create a challenge. Participating in live art is a different experience for models because instead of holding a pose for 11 hours at a time, they get to move about and push the boundaries of their bodies by twisting and contorting them into unusual positions.
Living art, performance art allows models to be a part of something bigger than just themselves, something they can’t see until after the performance is over. The sacrifice they make is trusting an artist like me to make their hard work worthwhile by creating art that speaks to people.
That’s what in general makes art a successful venture: It has to have a message that makes audience think about a concept in a different way or educate them about a topic they thought they already knew everything about or change their mind by providing meaning and clarity.
Try it. Put yourself out there and see what happens.
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