I was half-joking when I volunteered my middle-aged nakedness to be painted by Rebecca. When she accepted my offer with enthusiasm I was initially delighted and subsequently terrified. The kind of terror one might expect to feel if having volunteered to jump out of an aeroplane or walk hot coals for a dare. As an artist myself, I joke that it’s my superpower to get people naked within a few minutes of meeting them in order to do my work. It seemed only fair and fitting that I too should experience the sense of vulnerability and exposure my clients feel when they walk into my own studio.
In arranging the date with Rebecca, my anxiety increased dramatically. I compared myself to the beautiful women in her previous works of art and felt ridiculous and unworthy by comparison. I cruelly poked and pulled at my own belly fat in the days leading up to my modelling date, as if this one part of my body was some how to blame for my unacceptability. I’m 46, I droop and wobble, I dimple and I fold. What art could possibly come of me? And yet, when the day came, I showered and found some daring-do inside of me, determined to do my best for Rebecca, whatever that might mean. I had no idea what she envisioned, and still terrified of disappointing her, we began trying different poses. When you disrobe for a lover, there is an anxiety you might disappoint them with physical unsexiness, or simply be crap in bed. When disrobing for Rebecca I was simply scared that nothing I had to offer would inspire her to paint. That she would have wasted a day coming to see me naked, and we’d both be embarrassed by my inadequacy as a model and a woman.
Talking through her ideas for her new collection gave me a different perspective. Rebecca was looking for something more real, raw and feminine than images of naked flesh we are usually bombarded with. We talked about different stages of feminine physicality - menstruation, pregnancy, and my own personal fun time with peri menopause. We talked about feminine archetypes in mythology and what they mean to us. And I found myself reflecting on so many of the roles I have played or been assigned in life:- virgin, innocent, victim, seductress, mother, provider, monster, crone (yes…even at 46). Curling my naked body around my own work (life cast sculptures of women at every stage of life), with muslin draped around and over my face like a veil I felt strangely liberated. I wasn’t me, raw and naked on my studio floor any more. I was a woman, any and all of them, and some kind of creature too - contorting and flexing to express something more than just shapes for the viewer. I was no longer scared. I felt amused and powerful like a queen.
Rebecca’s reaction to the poses came as a complete surprise. Her growing excitement for the work she would create from the photos she was taking of me made me feel so alive and fabulous. My nakedness had nothing to do with the commercially acceptable sexual beauty that women my age feel like we constantly fail at, and everything to do with the core of my femininity - my wisdom, power, experience, my secrets and my skills, the life I have created, the love I have shared and inspired, the magic. The resulting paintings are astounding. From the collection, I instantly recognised myself and yet they seem so strange and other-worldly.
These are not portraits, but abstractions of my curves, my bones, my wild and strong spirit set free. I see not only myself but the women that surround me in life. I recognise my sister’s wrists in mine, my grandmother’s calves and ankles, my mother’s hips. I’m alone in the painting and yet I’m not - there is a unity, an affinity with my gender, with my tribe. The streak of red across one of the paintings feels like a powerful flag that I am claiming for my own. I’m still 46, and I still droop, wobble, dimple and fold. But I’m fucking fabulous.
CJ Munn 2019