A New York artist’s work stands out by blending in.
Master body painter Trina Merry transforms her subject’s bodies so that they perfectly camouflage in front of several well-known backdrops.
Her painted models seem to vanish when photographed in front of iconic settings around the globe such as the White House, Freedom Tower, Grand Central Station, Golden Gate Bridge and Ireland’s Giant’s Causeway.
A woman stays still and blends into New Yorks Grand Central StationCaters News Agency Merry — influenced by her own experience of living in a big city and her love of ancient body painting — spends a careful three hours painting her models, who must remain perfectly still.
“I’ve never felt more alone and disposable than while living in New York. It feels like I could disappear and no one would know,” Merry told Caters.
“My work shows that experience. It uses marking the body to show what we put on our bodies to identify ourselves within a ‘tribe’ actually cause us to disappear.”
Merry may feel invisible at times, but when she takes her art into public spaces she makes herself vulnerable to the varying opinions of others.
“People love it, they hate it, they think I’m a genius, they don’t get it and ask questions, they are scared of the nudity, they embrace the human body and complement the models on their beauty and bravery,” Merry told Caters.
“I’m immediately confronted by people’s opinions and have learned to not to take anything personally because they are projecting themselves onto the work. It has nothing to do with me or my reality of making the work and so I just focus on my responsibility to make the work,” she added.
