Chadwick and Spector - The Making of St. Mary Magdalene, after Dolci

I have been working on the project, Museum Anatomy, since 1994, with my collaborator, Chadwick Gray.  Together, we find 19th century paintings from around the world (usually existing in storage facilities), and I recreate them onto his body in water-based paint and use photography to document the ephemeral performance.

The paintings take up to 15 hours to create and have only been created in public a handful of times.  We recently acquired a plant cam, which helps us to videotape the entire painting in a time-lapse mode, so viewers can enjoy the entire length of the painting in just a few minutes at most.

You would think after working together for nearly 16 years, these paintings would run like clockwork, however there is still a tremendous amount of experimenting that goes on with them. Sometimes, it can get confusing to my eyes the wrapped painting on top of folded skin.  It can be very similar to painting a puzzle.

The painting to the right, was created in 2010 and as my skill as a painter improves, I am able to create more complex paintings on the human body. 

In other examples of the Museum Anatomy work, you can see we have begun making plaster casts off of Chadwick's body and incorporating them into the painting to help create even more interesting illusions.

If you are interested in seeing more examples of this work, please visit our website at www.chadwickandspector.com.  Or, if you would like updates of our newest paintings, please "Like" us on our Facebook Fan Page

Recently, I've been making products of our work such as mugs, t-shirts and posters for art lovers that want to collect our images.  These can be found at our PaintNaked store on Zazzle.

If you have any questions about our process with our Museum Anatomy process, please ask and I'll try to answer them!