The Mercury Project: Dancers Painted Silver Form Ballet Imagery for the West Australian Ballet's 2014 Program.

To celebrate its Season 2014 launch and Artistic Director Aurelien Scannella's first year of programming, West Australian Ballet collaborated with Artist and Photographer Emma Hack to create a series of striking images for its 2014 program.



WAB commissioned the well-known body illustrator and artist who painted the dancers' g-string clad bodies in silver and then positioned them so that they created human sculptures to represent next years' performances.

Snow White:

A close-up of the apple:


Inspired by the beauty, the fluidity and the smoothness of the element mercury – a metaphor for dance – Emma created a series of images to celebrate Aurélien Scannella’s first curated season. She has also worked with WAB dancer and upcoming choreographer Daniel Roberts on a performance piece which will be unveiled at the company’s launch event on 17 October. Together, Scannella and Hack developed the project to showcase what ballet is capable of.

Radio (that's not a typo) and Juliet:

close-up of lips and chin:


In painting them silver, all dancers merge together as one to create beautiful things. It embraces the traditional elements of ballet by creating silhouettes that are classic looking, paired with something as progressive as body painting and building structures of twisted bodies. It has never been done before.

La Fille Mal Gardée:


Giselle:

detail from above image of Giselle:



Images from behind the scenes, courtesy of The West Australian:





Check out this behind the scenes mini-documentary, the making of 'The Mercury Project':



WAB SEASON 2014


•RADIO AND JULIET: BALLET AT THE QUARRY
7 February > 1 March, Quarry Amphitheatre, City Beach

•GISELLE
9 May > 24 May, His Majesty’s Theatre, Perth

•LA FILLE MAL GARDÉE
5 September > 20 September, His Majesty’s Theatre, Perth
15 October > 18 October, Canberra Theatre Centre, Canberra

•SNOW WHITE AND THE 7 DWARFS
21 November > 14 December, His Majesty’s Theatre, Perth

Bookings:
Season Package Subscriptions are available from West Australian Ballet from 10am, 18 October. Call (08) 92140707, go to waballet.com.au, fill in the form inside the Season 2014 Brochure or visit the West Australian Ballet Centre. Individual tickets are available from 18 November.

For Radio and Juliet: Ballet at the Quarry contact Ticketmaster on 136 100, visit waballet.com.au or any Ticketmaster outlet.

For Giselle, La Fille Mal Gardée, and Snow White and the 7 Dwarfs, call Ticketek Theatre and Arts Hotline 1300 795 012, visit waballet.com.au or any Ticketek outlet.

See more of Emma Hack's work in these previous posts:

•Emma Hack Takes Body Art To A New Level With Her Latest Collection

•Body Painting Artist Emma Hack Goes "Pop!"

•Some Serious Bodywork. Car Wreck Made Of 17 Painted Bodies by Emma Hack For Anti-Speeding Ad (and A Look Behind the Scenes).

•New Body Art From Emma Hack. Beautiful Women And A Look At Painting Them.

www.emmahackartist.com

The Impressive Body Art of Michael Rosner and Eye Level Studios.

While I had seen a few of these stunning images under the category of photography (by Tim Engle), the true artist here is body painter Michael Rosner.





Having begun his craft with an airbrush, Michael eventually perfected a technique using found objects as a masking element to impose architectural and geometric shapes upon the organic contours of the human body.




Painted upon live models, each can take between 16 and 20 hours of laborious handiwork. No computer enhancement is used and all props such as skulls, leaves, horns, masks and headpieces are real.





The result is a combination of humanity and machinery - a steampunk like underworld of mythological gods and goddesses, of devils and robots.















above photo by Allan Barnes Photography

"Transforming an organic object using paint fills me with a sense of accomplishment and integrity and is the creative vehicle that carries me toward the translation of my inner vision to a reality that can be shared." -- Michael Rosner of Eye Level Studios.

About Body painter Michael Rosner:

above: Artist Michael Rosner at work

Michael Rosner is an American artist born in Chicago, Illinois. After attending Savannah College of Art and Design in Savannah, Georgia in 1996 he relocated to Sacramento, California and worked as a painter, sculptor and carpenter before beginning the series of body paintings in 2006.



Eye Level Studio, founded by Rosner in 2001, is what he calls a 'collective of talented artists' which has grown to include an elite group of the industries top professional photographers, stylists, make up artists and models who have become the creative force that has helped to realize Rosner's unique vision of body painting. In addition to live models, Rosner is known for painting on 'unconventional' surfaces including elaborate paintings on real leaves with hand selected species collected each fall throughout California.

Real People. Real Paint. Unreal Art. Available for paid shoots and live painting shows all over the world. Model Submission and Booking info email: Info@eyelevelstudio.com

Prints of some of the photographs shown in this post are available in his online store here.

photos in this post by David Geuringer, Allan Barnes and Tim Engle and courtesy of Eye Level Studios.

New Body Art From Emma Hack. Beautiful Women And A Look At Painting Them.

Body painter Emma Hack recently completed and launched a new series called "Beautiful Women." The "Housewife" and The "Oriental" were both created as a live installation in her Pop-Up Gallery in Adelaide.

"The Housewife" series has been inspired by the stereotypical American housewife depicted in many films of the 50's: her facade is polished and beautiful but, there is a hidden sadness to her posture and a yearning for a life of freedom and happiness.

"The Oriental" series clearly references the work of Vladimir Tretchikoff, in particular his “Chinese Girl” (1953). However in the hands of Hack, the subjects exude an inner strength, through their posture and demeanor. Again, the insertion of birds has been utilized to reference a yearning for freedom.


above: Vladimir Tretchikoff's Chinese Girl served as the inspiration for Emma's Oriental

She painted two canvas backgrounds and two models for these new works and debuted them at her Collectors Dinner last month. As is the case with all her work, Emma paints both the backgrounds and the clothes you see on the models' naked bodies.

The Housewife (3 versions):




The Oriental (4 versions):





Here's a look at the works in progress.

The backdrop for "Housewife" in progress:

The final backdrop for  "Housewife":

Detail:


Painting the "Housewife":





The backdrop for "Oriental" in progress:

The final backdrop for "Oriental":

Detail:


Painting the "Oriental":




The Catherine Asquith Gallery in Melbourne will be showing her Beautiful Women series in from July 9th through July 27th.


all images courtesy of the artist

Don't forget to see these great works by Emma:
•Taking Body Art To A New Level
• Car Wreck Made of 17 Painted Bodies
• POP Art Series


Emma Hack