Finished Mannequins

July 7, 2016 | Angie Brooksby Arcangioli

I had a ball painting these. But I’m happy they are finished are ready to decamp to the galleries.

These mannequins were commissioned by Carré d’artistes and will be available in their galleries starting in August. Several artists were selected. I’m curious to see how the other artists finished their ladies. Carré will show the mannequins in their French galleries, all 13 of them, and some of their other galleries wordwide. I do not yet know where mine will be but I’ll post when I do.

The mannequin with the key had to be edited. I like this first version. It was my favorite but when the agent asks for changes, changes must be made. Agents know their clients.

Mannequins are coated with an industrial strength paint that nothing sticks to. Before I could lay the paint or spray it I had to sand the pieces. Mannequins come in parts. They are easy to put together and take apart but sanding them and gluing them as I had to do was painful. I hurt my back to the point that I had to see a chiropracter. Before I could see the chiro, I spent ten days painting or lying down. I painted with coffee, first thing in the morning, and painted with a glass of rosé in the evenings.

Here is an instagram video of me and one of the girls riding the elevator.

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#mannequin Monster and me in the lift

A post shared by Angie Brooksby (@angiebrooksby) on Jun 9, 2016 at 4:21am PDT

I sanded for two days straight on a city bench in front of my atelier. Parisians rarely address you, unless they need to tell you what you are doing wrong, so it was surprising that every person who walked by had a word for me. Seeing me with all those body parts on the bench in the sun brought them out of their sidewalk grimace. One man, a bit of a nutter, offered to model nude for me. After he left, a real nutter— more like raging insane entity— sauntered up. I knew he was beyond repair, not from the shine in his eyes but from the way he held his pants above his exposed butt cheeks. Luckily I’d finished sanding by then and decamped from the city bench.

After a short vacation I’ll be back in the atelier with a brand new and top secret project that I’ve been working on for a year. Here is an image of the silicon molds.

silicon molds for sculpture — Silicon molds for the secret project.

Under the silicon is the secret sculpture. There are four and they are pairs. They will be completely different from my contemporary realism paintings. I’m going political thanks to #Brexit.

Three Graces and the Canons of Beauty

June 9, 2016June 9, 2016 | Angie Brooksby Arcangioli

brooksby-painted-mannequins — Painted and naked mannequins in my atelier

Three naked graces arrived yesterday. I’d awaited anxiously for their delivery.

Before I can paint them, I have to sand down the surface because mannequins are coated with some industrial super-paint. Nothing sticks to it. This makes sense if you consider how abused they are during their lives. Shipped around, dressed, undressed, scratched and scraped. The super paint, whatever it is, makes them easy to clean, but a bitch to paint. Nothing sticks to it. Not even spray paint.

howtopaintamannequin — Royal pain in the butt, sanding is.

I never realized how ugly mannequins are. This is what we women are supposed to look like. This is today’s canon of beauty. Mannequins. They have monstrously long legs, toddler-sized torsos, male adolescent shoulders, and feet fit for a fairytail princess. Not the feet in the photo, those are mine.

Canons of beauty change through the ages and contemporary beauty canons differ from place to place.

The first time I understood what beauty canon meant, I was in Piazza Signoria admiring Giambologna and Ammanannti’s fountain of Neptune. Of course I’d never really looked at the nymphs. It was Neptune’s privates I admired. Those and his perfectly sculpted six pack abs. (I stole that line from a contemporary romance novel.)

My ex-husband, who stood next to me, said, “Guarda il collo di quello, è mostruoso.” Look at that one’s neck, it’s monstrous. He was looking at the nymphs. And probably watching me, while I stared at the rock hard privates.

We joked about the nymph coming to life. Rising from the marble basin and walking through the piazza. If she was human she would have been Frankenstein’s latest creation, the young Japanese tourists, who were photographing Neptune’s junk, would have run screaming, sure that Godzilla had returned.

Canons of beauty are not only monstrous mannequins. They touch everything and they evolve. What was beautiful yesterday is monstrous today.

Ever been to a dog show? Dogs have character. Man bred and selected them to work. Poodles were hunting dogs. They were shaved in certain places so they could move easily through the brush. Their coats were left long in specific places to keep them warm. In the advent of the dog show, dog breeds were selected for beauty and their looks were distorted.

Now I have some serious sanding to do so I can grace those three monsters.

Painted Mannequin

May 14, 2016May 14, 2016 | Angie Brooksby Arcangioli

1mann-Hotel-du-Louvre — Hotel du Louvre Mannequin, by Brooksby

After every exhibition there is always a downtime.

I can hardly believe a month has passed since my signing, the dédicace. It was a fantastic success.A big turnout. Lots of paintings sold. A big thank you Aurélia, Edith and Charlotte for your engagement.

This mannequin is one of the things I’ve worked on in the last four weeks. It’s from a painting I made of Place Colette. The building is the Hotel du Louvre. It’s lit from below with red lights. It’s at the end of Avenue de l’Opéra.

Lots of Parisian buildings are lit from below, often with white lights. During the Christmas season some buildings are illuminated by changing lights. It’s hypnotic to watch the colors of the rainbow flow over the façades of the Galeries Lafayette and Le Bon Marché.

I’m also working on sculpture but I won’t post any photos until the project is finished. It’s top secret. Something completely different.