I would usually associate the art of body painting with the grand, but mildly obtuse, use of painting clothes on naked models in cheap advertising, or on the living statues at Covent Garden. However, self-styled ’skin illustrator’ Emma Hack takes this medium and turns it into something visually stunning.

Hack’s Wallpaper series is based upon the designs of Florence Broadhurst, blending the model into the paper design to “play within the wallpapers interacting with their environment.” Interestingly, the interaction is limited, visually grounding the model into the position they have been painted into.

Red Bird, 2008

Kabuki Feline, 2008

Exotic Birds, 2007

In an almost contrast, Levi van Veluw takes the concept of blending into the landscape and uses it to create beautiful self-portraits using his own face as a canvas.

Landscape I

Landscape IV

Landscape III

Material Transfers - Sterling wood

Anyone familiar my work will realise that I have a certain fascination with facial prosthesis, especially in relation to the mouth. The mouth is the principal means of communication for the human, primarily through speech and secondarily thorough expression. Rife with connotation, more and more artists and jewellers alike have begun to explore and challenge the social conventions that are linked to the mouth as a significant and highly sexualised facial feature.

Lauren Kalman
Pedestal (2006), Tongue Gilding (2005), Aural, Oral, Digital Gems (2006)

Naomi Filmer
Mouthpiece (1996)

Pieces which connect so directly with the body differ from the standardised ‘wearing’ of jewellery. They both connect with, and yet at the same time expose the body as opposed to simply adorning it. Although these pieces are beautiful objects within themselves, once worn they enhance and expose the area which is rarely seen; changing the shape and features of the body and in effect, creating a human-prosthetic hybrid. Most oral based pieces would not be practical if worn in the same way as other, more traditional jewellery and so most depends upon the photographic image. This is rarely an issue and goes towards enhancing the transient beauty of the pieces.

Heidi Schwegler
Mouth Piece I (1998)

George Maciunas
Flux Smile Machine

Lesley Vik Waddell
Scold’s Bridle (1998)

Javier Moreno Frias
Protector (2006), glass

Paddy Hartley
Face Corset