I thought I would write about my relationship to nudity, since one may ask why is it that my art works have so much nude?

First my relationship to nudity is to go back to a state of purity and naturalness. I was raised to have no shame around my body, to feel great about it (I feel very lucky that I was given such a freedom) and I understand that this is the not the case for most people. My body is sacred, it also links me to the animal kingdom which we delusional often think of ourselves as separated from. Human are the only animals wearing clothes, that makes us cyborg, because human unlike all other animals wouldn't survive without our technology.

See the first conversation I had with my husband when we meet was around fashion. I had just left Florence where I lived for 2 years working at Polimoda in fashion and Rufus said that he wanted a world where everyone wore the same outfit like the Chairman Mao suit, so no one judged each other for their appearance. I said that I totally agree but the better one was to just all be naked as we were born naked and this was our natural state. This conversation reflects a lot our relationship.

For me to take off my clothes is to connect to the sacred, spiritual, raw, vulnerable, natural state, the state we were in the womb and by which we were born. Nudity is one of the most beautiful state. Nudity become a way to sacralised this moment in time. It is to have nothing to hide and to give oneself as one is, touching the universal state and therefore universal belonging to the cosmos and God. Nudity, Art and Spirituality to me where always united. Nudity is a way to wake up from the the daily, normal perception of life, since although natural it is in our western society not normal. Therefore I use it as a way to transcend the social game, with it's code in fashion around, belonging, power, shame, status to bridge us into a different realm, the mystical realm of raw life. As one of the guiding inquiry around my art has been the question of "what is universal to all being?" Therefore nudity as a medium revealed itself as an evidence. Taking my clothes off for the art is like entering this state of purity and a reminder of our origins.

This association between nudity, art and spirituality finds its roots in my childhood. As I grew up spending a lot of time in the Louvre museum, I was so touched by the ancient Greek art and the Renaissance art. The naked bodies of the sculptures had so much soul and aliveness in them that I made a direct associate between nudity, art and life as a young child. The sensuality in them was one that was divine and not one that was perverse, so to me nudity can be less sexual then when wearing certain type of clothes.

I have experience how much nudity can be triggering to people and audiences and therefore I am very intentional to when I used nudity in my work as otherwise it can be distracting the audience from the message, or I can provoke reaction that I am not ready to hold space for. Nudity in art is a powerful medium, one that unlocks something deep in our psyche. Therefore it is important to be able to welcome what one might of have unleashed from the audiance. Because in that moment we take something intimate, private and make it public. It no longer belongs to just you, you give it away and expose yourself. There is a power in this gift and there is a vulnerability that comes with it, but true power comes from vulnerability. And the artist must be willing to be vulnerable ( beyond nudity) if it wants to make a difference.