Beyond Skin

The Intimacy Series: A study in human connection & expression of life, vulnerability & partnership

This series was inspired by the revolutionary work of photographers in the late 19th and early 20th centuries who pushed the bounds of artistic expression on gelatin prints to capture the beauty of human form and connection. Through their work, the sentiment of cultural perspective on the new media of photography began to shift from seeing the intimacy of a human body captured on film as purely erotic or pornographic, rather as an art form and thus the burgeoning dawn of fine-art photography.

These two paintings by RS Wallace – Nude Embrace and Au Naturale, are inspired, respectively, from the portraits created by Jean-Marie Auradon (Couple Nu Entwined, 1937; and Couple Embracing, 1938) and Albert Rudomine (Nude Couple, 1930s).

-> Nude Embrace (top) and Au Naturale as shown for the first time at Ginkgo Arts in West Chester, Penna., April 2022.

Nude Embrace Intimacy Series Oil on Canvas 24x24

Nude Embrace by RS Wallace is inspired from the portraits created by Jean-Marie Auradon (Couple Nu Entwined, 1937; and Couple Embracing, 1938).

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The colors chosen in these figure studies have an interwoven set of meanings -- firstly, highlighting human connection goes beyond the beauty of external features or identification of race and ethnicity. Secondly, the palettes are a play of contrasts between traditional sets of assigned masculine and feminine colors, while also speaking to the inner divine masculinity and femininity every human possesses regardless of birth gender.

As the figures share the same space and a physical connection, the selection of colors further focuses on the energy each person brings to the partnership and what energy is illuminated in the exchange of two humans being together. All the while the backgrounds evoke the dynamic and space the pair creates in their exchange, a shroud of a world all their own, yet equally akin to the infinite universe of shared human experience and connection.

On the surface, the series initially appears highly sensual and sexually charged, and yet that is exactly what naked human form represents for traditional society -- a single notion of purpose for a nude body: sex. Pushing the limits of sex, gender roles and identity is a keystone human experience in constant tension with the amores of the day. Nudity is a natural state of Humans, and the series imbues the vulnerability of Human Beings experiencing life on this Earth as Spiritual Beings, and a couple of those Beings sharing their journey in this moment together.

~ RS Wallace

AU NATURALE Intimacy Series Oil on Canvas 24x24

Au Naturale by RS Wallace is inspired by the work of Albert Rudomine (Nude Couple, 1930s).

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