Contemporary Figurative Nude Paintings

[Borsheim Arts Studio]

Original Paintings of the Human Body

by Kelly Borsheim

View Drawings from Italy 2006-7

View Sketches in Paint from 2005

Room VIII: Color 2005-2006

Room VII: Italy

Room VI: 2003-2005

Room V: 2002-2004

Room IV: 2001-2002
Room III: 1999-2001
Room II: 1996-2000
Room I: 1996-1997

When I was in college at SWTSU in central Texas, I took a fascinating course entitled, "Music and Literature". Our teacher, Dr. Paul Cohen, explained that long ago, these two arts were not separate. Music told stories, while people put words together so that they sounded lyrical, as well as having meaning. My paper for that class was about "Sheherazade" (1888) by composer Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov (1844-1908).

I had so much fun with that project! Although I checked out a record from the school library to hear the music, what really made an impression on me was getting my hands on some sheet music. I pulled out my flute, and played passages over and over to gain some understanding of my quest. What a joy!

What has this to do with paintings? Well, the more one pays attention, the more one realizes how much things are connected. I do not consider myself a colorist, the way many painters describe themselves. I love color, too, but in this case, I leave it to the experts. My goal is to appeal to more than one sense. So I study tone. I want the viewer to feel he or she could actually reach out and touch the figures in my paintings. I want to try to create 3 dimensions with 2. I am a sculptor. And doing these paintings helps my sculpting ability.

Each of our bodies comes from the combination of two unique individuals. Something amazing can be found in every body. It continually impresses me how limitless uniqueness really is and, therefore, we will never "have seen it all".

I love oil paint. It has what I call "squish appeal"--it strikes me as very sculptural because it is malleable, almost like clay. In my figurative oil paintings, I tend to look for the triangles in the composition of the model. Triangles have always appealed to me because of their versatility and stability. You can make any shape with triangles. (Rotate an equilateral triangle on its center point and you get a circle.) I use triangles to understand the relationships between parts of an image.

Some of the pages of the individual paintings will include some text and images of the work as it was being created. Thank you for visiting.

Art, like mathematics, is simply determining the relationship between things.