The body the voice of
the soul
Reading in Stephanie Rew paintings A
By: Faaiz Y. Alhamdani
/Iraq
The human body, (which remained almost
impossible to be reduced in abstract painting) still a
standard of beauty, that’s made the painters since early
renascence consider the naked bodies of goddesses as the
optimum representation for purity and perfection, that keeps
them out of the scope of our physical appetite. This
approach which Edward Manet picked a quarrel with, in his
painting a (lunch on the grass). This artwork had been
described by emperor napoleon the 3rd as indecent. Here the
departure appears, all what Manet did is making one of the
two girls looks to us. By this he gave them the form of
mortal human beings. He played with the holly feminine pose.
By making one of the girls communicate with us through her
eyes. Hence she step-down from the gods world. In the
classic painting the goddesses are not interested in
observer as they practice their ceremonies, and that’s what
makes them beyond our reach.
With time our look to the nude become more transparent, that
we see the philosophy of fashion designers has change from
the interest how to cover the body in elegant way to how to
expose the body in elegant way. From this view we can
understand the vision of Stephanie rew, although she
concentrate on the theme (how does the woman deals with her
physical existence). She is interested in that immortal
silent conversation between the woman and her body, and most
of her paintings shows the deep unity (like a pray), between
women and their soft bodies. They are so kind with their
physical entity as they consider it as a reflection of their
soul, this soul which find its happiness in its harmony with
the body and the harmony of the body with who knows how to
deal with it. Stephanie rew is trying to transfer the
worship of goddess’s immortal bodies to mortal women bodies
by capturing women in moments where they live worm talks
with their physical existence.
Stephanie believes that the body is the best that can
transmit messages. Perhaps she considers the body and the
soul as the two facets of the coin. And she tried to show
this through picking the poses of soft conversation between
the figures and their bodies. The message of Stephanie
painting, as I believe is that body-this physical existence
does not need goddess to be seen and appreciated as should
it be, away from our physical appetite. All we should do is
to understand how is the female live with her body, in order
to understand this body and understand the soul that it
represents.
Bodies in Stephanie paintings do not differ from those in
Manet paintings except in their postures that are devoted to
convey the message that Stephanie wants to say. In many
times Stephanie covers the hot spots in the body and expose
what we can we say neutral spots, in order do avoid cutting
the tiny silk between beauty and excitement. Although she is
positively sure that, the moments of pure talk between her
women and their bodies will make us respect their mortal
physical existence.
You cannot look on a woman spirit away from her body. And
you cannot understand the language of female body away from
her soul. Stephanie believes that the body through its
conservative movements can be continuity for the woman
spirit.
If the art message is to reveal the depth of the existence,
so the best way to reveal woman soul is through the body, as
Stephanie believes.
