My Work and The Body

I remember the exact moment that I realized I wanted to be a makeup artist. My high school was putting on The Wizard of Oz as our big musical for the year. Even though I was in the cast and there was a whole separate crew for makeup, I still had to help a bunch of ensemble members (aka, any of the football guys who had never seen foundation before) do their makeup.

I am on the left. Yes, I am a munchkin.

I was helping my friend Jim put on his eyeliner (which is a RIDICULOUSLY SIMPLE TASK considering all you have to do is freaking hold still people, come on...) and I'm literally holding his face in my hands and drawing on his eyelid, and I was just like wow... (yes, that is actually the best description I can give for that) This is a really amazing experience. I have complete control over him right now, because he is my canvas. I actually remember pausing for a moment as this hit me, and Jim freaking out a little wondering what was wrong. I had helped people put on their makeup for shows before, and I'd been doing my own makeup, be it for theater, Halloween or day-to-day for years, but it had never really occurred to me just how intense it was for me to have someone's face in the palm of my hands.
That was the first moment that I realized how much I loved doing makeup, but it wasn't until later that I realized I could make it my profession and the realm of my work. That came when I was watching an episode of Doctor Who. Not even a particularly special episode, but there were these aliens called the Sontarans, who, while slightly humanoid, are very, VERY made up.

This is what inspired me.... yep.

At that moment, it suddenly occurred to me that the producers of the show weren't just freakishly lucky to find some poor soul who actually looked like that. There was a real person under layers and layers of prosthetics, which where applied by an artist who got PAID to do that. I actually still have the note-card that I wrote that night to myself pinned to my wall that says "Move to London and do makeup for Doctor Who." It was like realizing there's a person out there who actually get's paid to taste-test Cheese-Its, only BETTER. 

Ever since then, I have been obsessed with the body as a canvas, subject, or both. It is a limitless source of inspiration. There are so many layers to the human body and such an immense capacity to build upon it that I could never be short of ideas. Whether I am painting on the human form or representing it, from purely depicting living flesh to imagining living dead flesh, or to create a new being entirely using the human body as a foundation, the body is the soul of my work. 

Necromantic Nate from the Zombie Portraits series, gouache on paper, Spring 2011