Body as Landscape

The Lake at Sunset

Why are there chinese characters floating in the sky? I'll tell you:

The first image is actually a modified photograph of my back and shoulder blade.
Haha, I fooled you. This is part of an ongoing artistic study I've been doing in which the body is treated as a form of landscape. I've been interested in this idea for over a decade. In 1998 I did a wonderful drawing of a woman emerging from a tree. Later that year I discovered a similar kind of series by a native artist named Norval Morisseau. He did wonderful paintings of lake horizons that were actually images of women's bodies (perhaps symbolizing Mother Earth?). Unfrontunately, I couldn't find photos of his body as landscape series online (I saw them at a gallery on Manitoulin Island).

In 2002 my final art project entitled "The Fall of Man, The Rise of Woman" used a similar concept. that's when I first got into photoshop. Later I did a painting of my sister's legs, in which the space inbetween formed another woman's body:
As you can see, I am very interested in nature and the use of negative space, as these concepts both visually represent some of my spiritual beliefs...But that's another blog in itself.