Body Electric
Body Electric is a reclamation of the female nude that features a range of body sizes and types, in a refusal to uphold traditional standards of beauty, but rather, reflecting real women in their natural state.
This evocative series of drawings is based on photography sessions the artist held with five different women. None of the subjects are professional models, but personal friends of the artist, which allowed her to naturally disarm her subjects and capture their true essence. She modernizes the female nude by capturing serene, supine and prone poses from unique angles and perspectives that allow her to explore both foreshortened and elongated representations of the body.
“The driving force behind all my pieces is to ignite a love for being in one’s own skin and to appreciate every line and curve the body makes.”
— Anna Erwin
Erwin’s subjects are finely drawn with nimble precision, yet emanate a quiet power that is difficult to capture. The artist delicately cuts out all her figure drawings, freeing them from the anchored space of the paper, and lastly arranges them between layers of transparent acrylic glass. In cutting figures out of an environment, they are recontextualized in a minimalist composition, which has the resulting effect of floating atop the surface they are hung on. In the final stage of her process, Erwins designs a surface pattern from her original artwork which is then printed on fabric & sewn into handmade goods.
