Look Darling, It’s Tom and Nancy

Headland Sculpture on the Gulf

25 January – 17 February 2013

Coastal headland Matiatia Bay, Waiheke Island, Auckland NZ

Christian Nicolson’s Barebottomland, a set of screen printed nudes populating a hillside in the 2011 headland Sculpture on the Gulf, examined nudity and our discomfort with its public display. Look darling, it’s Tom and Nancy, evolves this theme wit the thought that clothes and conventions are layers obscure our underlying humanity. Nicolson confronts the barriers, presenting an ideal of unlayered nudity which is set against a reality of social conditioning. “What a sin it is to be human. What is it about some parts of our body that becomes a big deal. The fact that nudity still carries such a stigma is quite frankly bizarre. We all share the same physical bodies. All of us are naked, somewhere, underneath it all, behind the clothes, society’s rules and expectations. There are two parts to all of us, the parts we see and the parts we don’t show. Who do you want to be? Why is it such a stigma to be human? Because when you get down to it all, that’s all it is. This is me. Is it ever true that I am free?”