Dutch Bihary, an in-demand art instructor who flies around the world teaching his craft, steps up to his canvas with a palette of paints in his hand.
“Ooh, cold!” the canvas squeals, as the artist carefully applies a pastie over her nipple.
Welcome to the peculiar practice of body painting, where nude models are transformed into works of art — at least until they hop in the shower.
Bihary, 42, is competing against nine other professional body painters for a $100,000 prize in the new Game Show Network series “Skin Wars,” which premieres Aug. 6. The show follows a “Project Runway” format, where the artists are given a set amount of time to work on their model with airbrush and traditional painting. The winner on each episode is determined after the models walk the runway. In the end, three finalists compete for the prize.
“I try very hard to show my work and to elevate body art to a fine-art status and not have it be viewed as some tawdry, peep-show type of thing,” insists Bihary, who got his start in comic books.
He will go up against artists who have painted everything from faces at county fairs to traditional canvases at respected art schools and even guests at high-end nudist resorts.
Human murals have seen a surge of interest in recent years thanks to pop-culture exposure — think Sports Illustrated’s famous painted-on swimsuits. There was even a body-painting day hosted in Columbus Circle over the weekend, where 40 nude models posed.
The new series is hosted by Rebecca Romijn, who knows all about suiting up by stripping down, after spending hours getting coated in blue for her role as Mystique in the “X-Men” movies.
Angela Roberts, 22, one of the artists competing, has been in Romijn’s drawn-on shoes. Roberts got her start posing nude, and says the painter’s relationship with the model is everything.
“The model has to feel comfortable; it makes all the difference in the final product,” Roberts says, admitting that a flesh canvas also poses some unique difficulties. “The window is eight hours or less. You’re not working on a piece of paper — the person has to eat, go to the bathroom. They can only stand for so long.”
Natalie Fletcher, 28
The camo master
After studying more traditional approaches to art at the Ashland Academy of Art in Oregon, Fletcher answered an ad looking for body painters.
She fell in love with the medium and found her niche painting her subjects so that they blend into a specific setting created in NYC.
“This is three beauties I painted into Central Park back in May,” she says.
“It’s one of the most powerful shots I’ve done.”
She also works with hand-painted backdrops.
Shannon Holt, 39
The realist
This Orlando, Fla., native attended the Tyler School of Art in Philadelphia with concentrations in art education, drawing and painting.
After graduation, she took a gig at a nudist resort in Tampa, Fla., that she says sparked her interest in nude murals as performance art.
For this realistic rendering, she painted the backdrop “and tried to disappear the model into it.”
Mythica von Griffyn, 43
The shape shifter
Denver’s von Griffyn is also a hypnotherapist, a Reiki master and a reverend.
Her work is a “perfect balance of spirituality and art,” helping people to see past any body imperfections.
Dutch Bihary, 42
The transformation artist
Bihary runs a face- and body-painting workshop with his wife in Seattle.
He got his start illustrating comic books, until he realized there was money in body painting.
Bihary creates works that garner double-takes, like this spinal peek.
He says: “I like to create the illusion that something is happening on the body that isn’t there.”
Nicole Hays, 29
The dreamer
Hays, a double-major in theater and visual arts, answered an ad looking for models willing to be painted for a nightclub event.
It was there, while posing nude, that she realized she’d rather be the artist.
Today, she says, her work “has a lot of fantasy elements.”