Body Paint by Paul Roustan

Paul Roustan is an award-winning artist based in Los Angeles, known for his work in body painting, photography, and conceptual performance.

Magazine

Our printed editions, circulating throughout various galleries, festivals and agencies are dipped in creativity.

The spirit of DODHO’s printed edition is first and foremost an opportunity to connect with a photographic audience that values the beauty of print and those photographers exhibited within the pages of this magazine.

We invite professional and amateur photographers from all around the world to share their work in our printed edition.

https://www.dodho.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/ban30.jpg

Paul Roustan is an award-winning artist based in Los Angeles, known for his work in body painting, photography, and conceptual performance. Roustan is recognized as one of the world’s leading body painters, whose style combines traditional fine art, pop culture, and reflections of the contemporary world to create conceptually-based body painting.

These intricate, ephemeral body paintings are experienced through live performance, video, and still photography. Roustan’s photographs, elaborately crafted images, often use the decorated body as one element in a larger construction to achieve a narrative, expressive goal. Telling stories about people, places, and ideas, his work explores the multiple layers of meaning expressed by the juxtaposition of the human figure with different elements. The fine balance between vulnerability and strength, image and concept, is captured in vibrant, evocative photographs that have been exhibited in galleries on the East and West coast.

SuperScar

D7K_6832web

“Most body paintings treat the model like runway models, i.e. walking coat hangers for the artworks on display. I like to tell a little narrative of who the person is. I want to celebrate his/her distinct uniqueness and give the viewer a little insight into this person’s mind.”

This is quickly evident after flipping through just the first several pages of his newly released book containing hundreds of photographs and 5 full step-by-step tutorials. He continues to elaborate on why his preferred canvas is skin,

“The advantage of the model is that once he/she moves, the artwork is reborn. It evolves. It becomes a work of its own. And I get to appreciate it as if I’m viewing it for the first time. Artists almost never really get to appreciate their own work like the rest of the world can. They are just too familiar with it.”

D7K_5626_5web

His photoshoots have taken him all over public and abandoned locations including a phone booth near a police station, an abandoned amusement park, in front of lifeguards at the beach, on Ivy League University property, a retired armory in NYC, and HASBRO Corporate Headquarters to name a few.

Roustan’s career spans both the fine art and commercial worlds, as his work has been commissioned for corporate, private, television and nightclub events worldwide, including work for Playboy, Bacardi, Tupperware and Absolut. His body painting has garnered numerous awards, including being named the 1st Place North American Body Paint Champion at the North American Body Paint Championships. It has also been featured in a wide variety of fashion shows, community events, parades and workshops. His work has been covered by media including, Spike TV, Sabado Gigante, the Chicago Sun-Times, the Providence Journal, Playboy Magazine, Airbrush Action Magazine, Univision, DIG Boston, and more.

D7K_7798

His work has graced the walls of numerous galleries including Arch Enemy Arts in Philadelphia, the Fountain Art Fair in NYC, and Arts Undressed: Miami. His totals exceed 30 galleries nationwide with limited edition prints acquired in nearly 200 private collections.

Roustan earned a Master’s Degree from Rhode Island School of Design and a Bachelor of Fine Arts from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. In addition to being a student he was also faculty at both schools. His lessons extended outside with teaching workshops at a wide variety of national locations.

Several of Roustan’s images have gone viral on the internet. The first major success, an extremely difficult to find camouflage body painting of a “Pandora Sphinx Moth” generated over 70,000 hits to his website in one day. Roustan has definitely had his share of navigating the taboo water of nudity. [Official Website]

“When viewers are able to transcend their initial “shock” of the nude, they are often presented with work that offers narrative, meaning, and concept. I believe the “shock” is due to inexperience around nudity. I’ve been around nude people for over 18 years now starting back in the early days of art school. Nude people are as sexual to me as brushing my teeth. That is to say, not much. But if these models bump and grind, or act all sexy like, that’s a different story. It’s all about the intent. Ultimately, when fresh viewers are able to partake in the world of artists, some manage to adapt easily to the tameness of the non-sexual nude figure, while others can’t.”

DSC_0602web

D7K_9121web DSC_0477 JellyFish KittyBomb PonyTranformer Roustan1 Roustan2 Roustan3 Roustan5

Roustan6

Roustan7 Roustan8 Runforthecure Sketch SonarScar ZombieWonderWoman CRYSTAL5web Brick _DSC9363web _DSC7656web _DSC3970LRweb _DSC1886

D7K_5448web2

3 comments

  • Paul Roustan

    Jan 26, 2016 at 19:34

    Thank you so much for the feature Dodho! It came out beautifully!

  • serge janssens

    Dec 19, 2016 at 22:55

    Que du bonheur en survolant les photographies de Paul Roustan ,de l’originalité ,de l’humour sans vulgarité et ne parlons pas d’une technique irréprochable . Merci

Comments are closed.

Other Stories

stay in touch
Join our mailing list and we'll keep you up to date with all the latest stories, opportunities, calls and more.
We use Sendinblue as our marketing platform. By Clicking below to submit this form, you acknowledge that the information you provided will be transferred to Sendinblue for processing in accordance with their terms of use
We’d love to
Thank you for subscribing!
Submission
Dodho Magazine accepts submissions from emerging and professional photographers from around the world.
Their projects can be published among the best photographers and be viewed by the best professionals in the industry and thousands of photography enthusiasts. Dodho magazine reserves the right to accept or reject any submitted project. Due to the large number of presentations received daily and the need to treat them with the greatest respect and the time necessary for a correct interpretation our average response time is around 5/10 business days in the case of being accepted.
- Between 10/30 images of your best images, in case your project contains a greater number of images which are part of the same indivisible body of work will also be accepted. You must send the images in jpg format to 1200px and 72dpi and quality 9. (No borders or watermarks)
- A short biography along with your photograph. (It must be written in the third person)
- Title and full text of the project with a minimum length of 300 words. (Texts with lesser number of words will not be accepted)
This is the information you need to start preparing your project for its presentation
To send it, you must compress the folder in .ZIP format and use our Wetransfer channel specially dedicated to the reception of works. Links or projects in PDF format will not be accepted. All presentations are carefully reviewed based on their content and final quality of the project or portfolio. If your work is selected for publication in the online version, it will be communicated to you via email and subsequently it will be published.
Contact
How can we help? Got an idea or something you'd like share? Please use the adjacent form, or contact [email protected]
Thank You. We will contact you as soon as possible.
Submission
Dodho Magazine accepts submissions from emerging and professional photographers from around the world.
Their projects can be published among the best photographers and be viewed by the best professionals in the industry and thousands of photography enthusiasts. Dodho magazine reserves the right to accept or reject any submitted project. Due to the large number of presentations received daily and the need to treat them with the greatest respect and the time necessary for a correct interpretation our average response time is around 5/10 business days in the case of being accepted. This is the information you need to start preparing your project for its presentation.
To send it, you must compress the folder in .ZIP format and use our Wetransfer channel specially dedicated to the reception of works. Links or projects in PDF format will not be accepted. All presentations are carefully reviewed based on their content and final quality of the project or portfolio. If your work is selected for publication in the online version, it will be communicated to you via email and subsequently it will be published.
Get in Touch
How can we help? Do you have an idea or something you'd like to share? Please use the form provided, or contact us at [email protected]
Thank You. We will contact you as soon as possible.
WE WANT YOU TO SHOW US YOUR PHOTOGRAPHS SO WE CAN SHOW IT TO THE WORLD
AN AMAZING PROMOTIONAL TOOL DESIGNED TO EXPOSE YOUR WORK WORLDWIDE
PGlmcmFtZSBkYXRhLXctdHlwZT0iZW1iZWRkZWQiIGZyYW1lYm9yZGVyPSIwIiBzY3JvbGxpbmc9Im5vIiBtYXJnaW5oZWlnaHQ9IjAiIG1hcmdpbndpZHRoPSIwIiBzcmM9Imh0dHBzOi8veGs1NHUubWp0Lmx1L3dndC94azU0dS94dXM2L2Zvcm0/Yz1lNmM1YzIzOCIgd2lkdGg9IjEwMCUiIHN0eWxlPSJoZWlnaHQ6IDA7Ij48L2lmcmFtZT4NCg0KPHNjcmlwdCB0eXBlPSJ0ZXh0L2phdmFzY3JpcHQiIHNyYz0iaHR0cHM6Ly9hcHAubWFpbGpldC5jb20vcGFzLW5jLWVtYmVkZGVkLXYxLmpzIj48L3NjcmlwdD4=