The Nude Sensuality in Contemporary Art, by Iliana Dokova

Nudity in art as well as the human form combined can be traced throughout all the eras in art starting from pre-historic times and still be seen in today’s art, recently in photography as well.

The nude figure in art has generally reflected, with few exceptions, social standards of aesthetics as well as the morality of a certain time period in the painting, sculpture and more recently photography. Just as in human history the human nude figure has been one of the principal subjects in art history for artists.

The nude figure has been represented on pre-historic statues and drawings throughout all eras since. The male nude was more commonly used in the start, especially in ancient Greece. Today society and their morality, values and outlook on life has evolved and likewise so has the female nude in art, lately to be more highly represented and regarded in contemporary art.

Iliana’s expressive nude paintings are the core essence of her artistic life. Very emotional, sensual and tender, the artist loves to paint nude women figures. Describing the process of painting as very unique for her,  Iliana starts a painting and does not stop until it is finished, thus expressing her art ardor and passion for her paintings and sits for many hours until the final stroke of the painting touches the canvas. She expresses her feminine side, her soul and always has some strong feelings while creating her artworks. Her paintings are very sensual and even sexual. Iliana embraces the night to create her figures, born from all of the sensual emotions a woman can imagine and cannot make art on commission, but only out of her soul and body. The sexuality in her paintings has a long-term presence in modern and contemporary art.

Sexuality has been a recurrent subject in the history of art almost since the beginning of known representations. Nearly every civilization has created sexually explicit imagery, often in the context of spirituality or rituals concerning fertility, to express cultural ideals of beauty and virtue. Artists such as Gauguin and Pablo Picasso sought to reclaim unrestrained sexual energy, albeit with an adolescent disregard for the humanity of their lovers. The discovery of repressed sexuality by Sigmund Freud has contributed to a contemporary culture obsessed with the sexual body. The ascent of a scientific worldview and industrialization has corresponded with rampant materialism. Each of us can examine the ways in which our relationship to sexuality, beauty, sensuality, in general, is a limiting fixation without any meaning.

It is very unique to mention that, although typical representations of the female nude in the European artistic tradition were made by male artists, who put a woman on display for the pleasure of a presumed male spectator, Iliana focuses on woman nudes to express herself and the women soul as an artistic archetype. The male artist in most cases transforms the female naked body to become nude insofar as it is seen as an erotic object offered to the man’s gaze and his imaginary knowledge. Therefore, as an object of contemplation that uses nudity to reference mythological or biblical themes, the nude is elevated as a legitimate subject of art.

When we put into perspective the paintings of Iliana, we see the contrast of painting a nude woman in a different and more sensual way, much less objective, but more abstract and emotional. In art history, we see that the terms of that offering are subject to conventions calculated to flatter the male viewer and to stimulate his fantasy of sexual domination. Thus, as some art critics observe, “… almost all post-Renaissance European sexual imagery is frontal, either literally or metaphorically, because the sexual protagonist is the spectator-owner looking at it …”. This is very different in the paintings of Iliana. Her figures are more disguised, sometimes she paints portraits, that are also part of a very sensual journey. She makes her paintings as in one breath, much like some of the greatest artists of the 20th century.

Carl Jung prompts us all to come to reconcile our instincts and morality, avoiding undue repression as well as unabated giving in to lust. “The erotic instinct is something questionable, and will always be so whatever a future set of laws may have to say on the matter. It belongs, on the one hand, to the original animal nature of man, which will exist as long as man has an animal body. On the other hand, it is connected to the highest forms of the spirit. But it blooms only when the spirit and instinct are in true harmony.”

All paintings of Iliana elicit a strong emotional and spiritual impression. Whether negative or positive, it is an indication that it is impacting the unconscious. As a very evolved and mature contemporary artist, the paintings of Iliana are always a good investment, as well as very fine art objects. As she starts painting only when she is moved by deep emotion, besides being very sensual, her art is expressing all variation of human emotions – love, sadness, anger, excitement, misery, hunger for life, lust, sexuality, joy, fear.

A work of art that features the nude body or erotic imagery, is an opportune vehicle towards observing one’s relationship to sexuality, instinctual energy, and the associated archetypal forces.

In contemporary art, we need to ask ourselves, however challenging it might be, why an artist might depict the nude in that particular way. In tandem, one may introspectively discover how one relates to the nude, and what qualities of emotions or thoughts that representation evokes. Throughout history, the nude figure has been a staple of Western art. Ancient Greece was heavily focused on the subject, using it to express the ideals particularly of male beauty. With the Renaissance, the body was a revival of antiquity models, embracing humanism, religion, and symbolism, but that changed dramatically in contemporary art, where the human body acts as a blank emotional canvas, able to convey both power and vulnerability in the same instance. There is, however, less of a focus on idealized forms and more on someone’s individuality. Stripped bare, there’s a lot to learn about a person when there isn’t anything for them to hide behind.

The nude figures of Iliana are so tender and emotional, but so are her portraits. In some of her works of art, Iliana paints portraits of women, that is so bare and expressive in their appearance, that the spectator is convinced that if he looks further at their bodies, they are naked as well. The Woman in the paintings of Iliana is depicted bare, naked and vulnerable, with no makeup, no artificial style with plain emotions, as a black emotional canvas, just as the nude bodies she loves to paint. Iliana is painting her nude bodies and faces from her heart and soul, much like some of the great contemporary artists of the 20th century, such as Lucian Freud and Amedeo Modigliani.