Wearing my art on my sleeve

By DITA DE BONI

Dodging the workmen and exhibits as yet uncovered, I took a stroll through the galleries that would soon display the work of world-famous Kiwi body artist Joanne Gair at the Auckland War Memorial Museum feeling a growing sense of happy anticipation.

It was unlikely I would be transformed into a Botticellian Venus a la Demi Moore, or a Parisian showgirl like Madonna, but Gair had said she would work her magic on me (just a part of me, mind you). The prospect was no less exciting because of it.

You might say I was in girlie heaven, as was the artist, clearly. Gair - a petite bundle of energy and excitement whose consistently upbeat mood is highly infectious - sat behind an unseemly stack of paints, cloth, beads, sparklies and other materials with a broad smile in the middle of the museum's still unfolding Body Beautiful exhibition, two paint brushes poking out either side of a stack of hair.

She located her canvas fairly quickly (my left hand and forearm) and set to work, swabbing the skin with alcohol and then washing on a stencil of her own design made with tattooist's ink and newsprint. The stencil's design was reminiscent of the intricate patterns favoured by Indian women using henna.

Gair then carried out the meticulous and highly time-consuming colouring in of the stencil and addition of further flourishes with a black ballpoint pen, which I supplied from the swag I carry around as a matter of course.

After the basic design was completed, Gair adorned it with tiny crystals and cut-glass sparklies, all of which can be bought from specialist stores in LA, the artist's haunt. An Indian woman walking by as Gair worked said her countrywomen buy the same types of gewgaws from huge tubs, and, indeed, those sold in in the West come mainly from that part of the world. They are fixed to the skin with eyelash glue, although some have their own adhesive.

Gair used more than 100 pieces of sparkle for the relatively small area of my skin she decorated, some no bigger than a crumb, ingeniously picked up by the artist and applied using the end of a wax stick.

As she said, the process could have gone on forever as more and more jewels were added. But at 2 pm, four hours after I first sat in front of her, we decided - somewhat reluctantly - we both had other things to be getting on with. In that time her conversation never waned and her steady hand never faltered. And I never got bored, watching the beautiful shapes unfold.

Gair says she likes the body as a canvas, because the interaction is so interesting. "The body has a life of its own and its own expression, it evolves into its own personality," she says.

But unlike the highly stylised commercial body painting favoured by celebrities and models and perfected by Gair, modern scarification, tattoo art and other body adornment still tend to be an expression of identification with particular groups.

All of today's major forms of body art existed in the ancient world, and no single origin for any of them has been identified. But remnants abound, including a makeup palette from Egypt, circa 3650 BC to 3300 BC, and a Greek vase from the 5th century BC depicting tattooed Thracian women.

Tattoo - a word derived from the Tahitian word tatau - is today's most popular form of body adornment, and its precedents really are ancient. They have been found on the abdomens of ancient Egyptian women, thought to be linked to fertility.

In Japan, tattooing as an artform started among men in certain occupational groups such as rickshaw drivers, while in parts of Polynesia, geometric tattoo, including the moko used by Maori, indicated rank, and was based on the facial features and lines of each person's face.

In Samoa, where tattoos have long covered the lower half of men's bodies, the tattoos had no specific cultural significance but to be untattooed left a man open to criticism and the suggestion that he could not bear pain.

Although modern body adornment is not as dangerous as it was when piercings, holes and other scars were prone to infection in less than sterile environments, I ask Gair whether her all-over body paint could suffocate its wearer.

That idea must have come from the movie Goldfinger where the painted person died, she says."But of course, that was part of the story! I often wonder what they used however, because none of the gold paint came off on the sheets."

Whatever the pain and price of body adornment (in the case of my left arm, a job that might cost a US client of Gair's between $US500-$US700 [$1200-$1700] and several hours) the result certainly turned heads, attracting the "oohs" and "aahs" of (mainly) women and the offer of a free bus ride from a suitably impressed bus driver.

And despite the itch several hours later and the curse of leaving a trail of sparklies through the house as they begin to shed - many more hours later - the experience of being adorned by an expert is one that, time and money permitting, can make you feel extremely exotic.

After all, to paraphrase Oscar Wilde, if you can't be a work of art, wear a work of art.

* Vodafone Body Art, featuring the work of Joanne Gair, opens today and runs until March 17, 2002. Joanne Gair will be running a two-day workshop in early March 2002. More details will be available closer to the time by phoning her on 021 445 776.