{"id":532,"date":"2009-05-07T11:37:22","date_gmt":"2009-05-07T18:37:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/anotherbb\/wp\/2009\/05\/fat_art\/"},"modified":"2009-05-07T11:37:22","modified_gmt":"2009-05-07T18:37:22","slug":"fat_art","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/anotherbb\/2009\/05\/fat_art.html","title":{"rendered":"Fat art"},"content":{"rendered":"

Damn braces: Bless relaxes<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

William Blake, The Marriage of Heaven and Hell<\/i><\/a><\/p>\n

In life, corpulence signifies consumption of poverty junk food, poor choices, inertia and\/or genetic predisposition. In art, it’s an opportunity. Figures who earn the space they consume are heroes.<\/p>\n

Art began with fat people. The Venus of Willendorf was carved in limestone at least 24,000 years ago. Among painters, Rubens stands out, which is where
\nthe complimentary adjective, Rubenesque, came from, although it doesn’t apply to his men. His fat women are voluptuous, while their fat male
\ncompanions are dim or funny in a Falstaffian vein, except for his gravely dignified Bacchus<\/a>.
\nLucien Freud also paints girth in both men and women; Jenny
\nSaville, women only, and Catherine Opie, photographing herself.<\/p>\n

Where are we now?<\/p>\n

Mark Takamichi Miller<\/a> paints from discarded or lost photos – prints never picked up from the drug store or undeveloped rolls he finds by accident. I love his blond woman in a baseball cap from 2003. She averts her eyes, as if the process of being in the frame is barely endurable, but she wears lipstick and sports a floral necklace in the grizzled folds of her neck.<\/p>\n

\"marktmillerfat.jpg\"<\/a><\/span> Brian Murphy<\/a> has made a career of painting himself as a massive volume with no weight. His image in watercolors is large and leaky, the brown of his beard underlining the sand-pink cloud of his face. He’s a tempest of his own making, creating weather states as self-portraits. Because you can see through them, they’re apparitional, an insubstantial pageant ready to melt into colored air. <\/p>\n

\"murphytriplefigure.jpg\"<\/a><\/span>
\"BrianMurphyfat.jpg\"<\/span>Using watercolor and graphite, Geoffrey Chadsey<\/a> is all about attitude. His work is delicate but packs a punch.<\/p>\n

\"GeoffreyChadseyBoxer.jpg\"<\/a><\/span>John Feodorov<\/a> ‘s fat people live in their heads; in dreams they avoid responsibility.<\/p>\n

\"feodorofdrowning.jpg\"<\/a><\/span>To paraphrase Carl Dennis<\/a>: Chewed by his appetites, he chews his prey. (1) Takeshi Murata<\/a> (2) Jim Woodring<\/a><\/p>\n

\"mutiplexwesternb.jpg\"<\/a><\/span>
\"jimwoodring.jpg\"<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

Jeanne Dunning<\/a>: What if fat embraced the body like a comforter, and we could peel it off and pull it on at will?<\/p>\n

\"jeannedunning.jpg\"<\/a><\/span>Also, Donnabelle Casis, free-floating fat in oil paint, here<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Damn braces: Bless relaxes William Blake, The Marriage of Heaven and Hell In life, corpulence signifies consumption of poverty junk food, poor choices, inertia and\/or genetic predisposition. In art, it’s an opportunity. Figures who earn the space they consume are heroes. Art began with fat people. The Venus of Willendorf was carved in limestone at […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-532","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-uncategorized","7":"entry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/anotherbb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/532","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/anotherbb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/anotherbb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/anotherbb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/anotherbb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=532"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/anotherbb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/532\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/anotherbb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=532"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/anotherbb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=532"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/anotherbb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=532"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}