Nude Art LA’s Spring Event: What Did that Look Like?!

All Photos by Billy Bennight for The Los Angeles Beat

Nude Art LA opened in its new location at The Cooper Design Space after its initial run at Art Share LA in September of last year. There was a VIP opening night followed by two more Nude experiences, both offered on Saturday. Saturday started with an early “All Nude” show where participants and patrons could enjoy the Nude Art LA programming completely naked followed by a general public viewing and performances to close the night.

While I can’t speak to every artist or performance at Nude Art LA shows, there was a lot of great art to be had and the performances were fun, smart and absolutely creative. I was overjoyed to have the return of Bangs The Clown, Laura Desiree (Naked News), and  Michelle L’Amour (Burlesque).

Bangs the Clown had a fun and mischievous performance where she selected a member of the audience to help her walk on glass. She used a lot of pantomimes and physical humor to convey her ideas and she had fun with it in such a way that everybody felt they were a part of the show.

Laura Desire kept things popping with her vivacious interviews of artists and nudists throughout the various performances. She had no problem being naked and she wore it well.

Michelle L’Amour did three performances, of which I saw two. Her work comes from a more purist approach of burlesque with costumes, accessories with an emphasis on tease with her strip. Both of her shows varied but she accented high notes of costumed play and grinding on the low ones as a naughty temptress. There were lots of booty shaker moments and clothing seductively being pulled away. She made for a stunning silhouette in red sequins and a swinging feathered boa on the catwalk.

Photo Gallery after the Break (NSFW)

I was also very excited (and simply bowled over) by Rio Sirah and his collaborations with Radhika Hersey and Anthony Duran with their innovative and compelling body painting on multi-talented model Masha Ko. The two days I had the pleasure of seeing their work, I was very impressed. Masha Ko was the muse of the crew’s artwork that was primarily beautiful, disturbing and hypnotic animal prints. The first day she was decorated with a serpentine pattern and the second day was a catlike tiger-inspired pattern all over her body. Masha Ko extended the exotic nature of the artist’s work with her amazingly exotic and erotic approach to movement and dance. The art direction on this body-painted woman was exceptional, but her skills as contortionist and dancer were mind-blowing. She knew how to be both sexy and frightening with her serpentine moves that blended in “popping” techniques that were absolutely mesmerizing. The easiest way to describe what I saw would be the use of the word “weird” and so fantastically, wonderfully odd and unexpected: like Shiva meets a contortionistand spices it up with urban popping/locking.

Rome da Luce, Pashur and Lisa Pedersen provided additional nude body art and nude art demonstrations during the show. Their various contributions were presented at the end of each event, encapsulating their sessions of live painting. They were fun, inspired creations highlighting the beauty of the nude canvas. Eve Adams of “Skinpression” took a slightly different approach, using her body–or specifically her boobs –s a means of painting. She had been painting canvases all day with her boobs, but in the evening she showed off her skills to everyone in a special session upon the Nude Art stage. Other performances of note were Brittany Siren Wand and Pole Show LA , which showed off their talents in a special presentation on the catwalk.

The fashion shows were fun, high energy and risqué. The designers included Sara Chau (Sultry Affair), Synithia McGowan (Amazsyn), Max Uber, Brit Harrison (wearable art), Evelyn Rodriguez (Santa Barbara Flowers) and Mara Cole (Marcole) among others. Their artistic endeavors are shown in the photo gallery at the bottom of this article. For a full fleshing out of the Nude Art LA experience, dig into the gallery below and savor the energy of those unusual and fun nights, then set your sights on the next edition of Nude Art LA coming in the fall.