The human body has been an object of inspiration within the world of art since the human being learned to immortalize beauty through sculpture and painting, first, until reaching photography and video in more modern times.
The treatment of the body as a landscape through the (re) definition of the human anatomy has been one of the constants of different artists, who use the languages of eroticism and sensuality as pretexts to create in different formats.
These concepts are the basis of the work of Izuky Pérez (Banes, 1982), who has known how to transcend the spaces of commercial photography to delve into areas with greater potential within this art, as is the case of the nude.
His attachment to photography began in his native province of Holguín, as he confesses to On Cuba: “In my twenties, I was a Computer Science professor at a Polytechnic Institute and there, when I discovered photo editing programs, I felt that I could express myself and then I began to venture into digital photography. I went through several photographic styles in which I still venture. I studied a lot, I learned from the great references of universal art and I am still nourished by them every day.
As part of the daily job, Izuky has ventured into social photography, advertising campaigns, fashion snapshots, products, urban landscapes, architecture and conceptual photography. She soon learned not to cling to a single creative line but to express herself freely depending on the theme and the moment, but she still prefers nude photography.
The body, like a landscape, is born naked. Behind the camera, the photographer can mold the human silhouette with his imagination, although the person has also chosen to undress to give, with the help of the artist, a message. “In it —he specifies— I have found a viable way to paint the magic of bodies with light, those beautiful characteristics that have shapes, volumes, styles, textures, colors. It seems to me an inexhaustible source of inspiration and expression, it is incredible how the nude, which is a theme that can apparently be repetitive, is reinventing itself, new compositions and ideas are created with the same raw material, the artistic eye and a little of light”.
The bodies that Izuky portrays seek to unsettle through their shapes and contrasts while they seduce and provoke the viewer. It is difficult to remain indifferent to her nudes since they burst into contemporary visual arts more than a decade ago, with a subtle, precious, classic poetic and, on occasion, a “slave” of beauty.
Izuky, however, more than the provocation typical of contemporary creators, is moved by a sense of duty in the face of aesthetics: “This that I see deserves to be registered”. The same thing creates in a detailed study various atmospheres and compositions, which appeals to spontaneity as a resource.
The creator faces the images before him to define them with various symbols, allegories; beyond the rational understanding of shapes and volumes. The images created by Izuky are addressed to diverse cultural references, suggesting a discourse that is sometimes erotic, from the most classic canon, although without neglecting a more contemporary perspective.
With a strong visual power, the artist has been able to work on various series, including those made with actors, dancers and yoga practitioners, playing with the elegance and plasticity of the models, who display their skills and physical preparation with grace and passion.
In order to add greater visual strength to the image and eliminate distinctions, Izuky takes advantage of the benefits of black and white in many of his nude photographs, to redraw the complexions with the purpose of deceiving the viewer’s eyes and expanding the horizons of what we commonly find seeing a person devoid of clothes.
The strategic use of light fosters the illusion that the models are sculpted from a mystical material such as obsidian or smoky quartz. In these austere backgrounds, the figures stand out, beautiful in their context as a confluence between eroticism, body and image.
The solid backgrounds of his snapshots, devoid of artifice and embellishment, propose a sober aesthetic, while creating a dramatic setting and concentrating all attention on the figures, who theatrically twist, bend, and contort in complex and seemingly impossible positions.
A dilemma could be understood here, since it is generally a joint effort. Who would be the true author of the artistic piece? The limits between creator and work are blurred and twisted like the bodies of the photographed and the photographer in the search to perpetuate the sublime in a click.
However, Izuky does not neglect a fundamental aspect in nude portraits: the eroticism that emanates from the models, that fine line between morbidity and sensuality is worked in detail by subtly capturing the look that stimulates the passions of those who admire the photo in front of him.
In this sense, the use of landscapes outdoors provides a natural component to the naked body, without abandoning the gray tones that surround the photos with a certain mystique, where the religious component also plays its role in several of the motifs of the images, providing a sometimes romantic halo.
Recognition of the artist’s nude photography has come to him on several occasions, with participation in more than twenty collective and personal exhibitions in Ecuador, Venezuela, Spain, Italy, Panama, among other countries, as well as publications of his work in different magazines. What Malvie magazine, Asiana wedding, The black book photography, DNG, Spitter Magazine.
But through the international contest PhotoSoot Awardshis nude works have achieved greater recognition, with awards in different categories within this aspect of photography, especially in the “Conceptual Location” section, where the artist has managed to put together, through symbolism, a whole rhetoric of the landscape, a success that is also visible in his studio works, always with a restless gaze in search of deciphering the liveliness of naked bodies.
