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It was not your average police bust. On the evening of July 30, cops in Times Square arrested one man, a middle-aged artist, and a pair of young women who were completely naked — except for a colorful layer of body paint.
The painted ladies were briefly handcuffed, then got dressed before they were put into a cop car — and taken into custody, where they’d remain for 25 hours.
Talk about suffering for your art!
Painter Andy Golub, 45, has spent the past three years giving new meaning to the term “painting nudes,” using his brushes not to depict naked women on a canvas — but painting his vision directly onto their skin.
PHOTOS: SEE MORE NUDE PAINTED LADIES!
Typically clad in nothing but flip-flops and (usually) a G-string, the artist’s topless muses have posed for him at city landmarks including Columbus Circle and the Brooklyn Bridge, as well as nearly two dozen times in Times Square — where they’re one of the few sights that can make even world-weary New Yorkers look twice.
“For me, it’s the most fun to paint where it has a really strong impact,” says Golub, a married father of two.
“When I started painting outdoors, it became an interaction that included the public. When people see a nude model, it’s like, ‘Wow’ — it makes them look at things differently.”
The decision to have his models take off even their G-strings was what you might call an au naturel extension of his earlier work.
“It’s very much a continuation of what I’ve been doing,” he says. “I explained [to the models] that it was perfectly legal, but that I had not done it before, and I couldn’t say what the reaction of the police might be. These particular models were comfortable with it.”
As was Golub, who’s had enough encounters with cops that he wasn’t entirely surprised — or prepared — when this particular outing ended in his first arrest. A resident of South Nyack, NY, Golub majored in art at SUNY Albany, but says he considers himself “pretty much self-taught, developing my own style.” He discovered his, ahem, arresting personal technique via more traditional modes of painting, many of which he continues to practice at his Rockland County studio.
“I was painting canvases for many years, and then I started painting different objects, such as a car muffler, a car, surfboards — and it was just really cool having the art interact with the object,” he says. After painting a mannequin, he realized it might be interesting to paint a real person — a project he completed for the first time at the 2006 Artexpo in New York. “It really took off,” he recalls.
“Once I started painting people, I noticed that it’s a lot more than painting the form — each person has a personality or energy that you can incorporate into the art.”
His models are a mix: Some are volunteers who have been inspired by seeing his work on the street, in nightclubs or at corporate events. Some pay him — he charges between several hundred and several thousand dollars, depending on the project — or are professionals selected from ModelsMayhem.com.
Golub acknowledges that “definitely a lot more women than men” pose for him, but he notes that he’s repeatedly taken on male subjects as well. His wife is “fully supportive” of his close contact with topless models, and he says it was she who pushed him to continue body painting after his initial splash at Artexpo.
To create his unique style, he typically uses bright colors, beginning by applying a quick coat of paint, then tracing over it in contrasting shades. Spectators sometimes liken the final product to the creatures from “Avatar,” though Golub’s designs are much more ornate.
The painted bodies can inspire other comparisons, too.
“It’s very Lady Gaga-ish and strange — in a good way,” says 19-year-old Kejaana Gibbs, an aspiring art student who recently observed Golub’s work during a visit from Waterbury, Conn.
“It’s interesting, a beautiful thing.”
Of course, not everyone responds so positively to the public nudity. Occasionally, a passerby will confront Golub, or even call the police.
“One time someone called 911 while I was in Times Square,” the artist says. “People will come and say, ‘You shouldn’t do this, because of the kids.’ ”
But testing boundaries is part of the point, he continues — and kids in particular have expressed enthusiasm for his work. “Everyone is entitled to their opinion, but I think there is nothing damaging about what I’m doing,” he says. “[Most] people love it, and kids love it because it’s treating the body in a completely nonsexual way. It’s about not being ashamed of the body.” That said, police do tend to show up regularly at Golub’s painting sessions, often calling in to headquarters to confirm the artist’s assertion that, yes, his models’ outdoor toplessness is legal. (The definition of “public lewdness” is somewhat ambiguous, since it doesn’t specify what qualifies as lewd.)
The police have never detained him — or at least they hadn’t, until his models took things a step further last month. Despite his arrest, Golub insists that full-frontal nudity in his art is legal, and says he has a “very good” lawyer to prove it when he faces misdemeanor public lewdness and exposure charges in October. (Nevertheless, he admits he’ll probably wait for his case to be settled before having his models go completely naked again.)
His muses, he adds, are fully informed about the relevant legal issues before they pose, and he’s always ready to accommodate their requests or let them change their minds. “It’s very exciting,” says one of his recent subjects, a 24-year-old Japanese tourist who gave her “art name” as Ayame. Wearing nothing but a silver pendant and leopard-print panties, she posed for three hours in Times Square, as Golub coated her in shades of blue. While tourists pointed from the tops of double-decker buses, cab drivers and pedestrians snapped photos on their cellphones, some elbowing each other with goofy smiles and others pausing with thoughtful expressions as they observed the scene.
“You get a great mix of people,” Golub says. “A lot of times, people say, ‘Only in New York.’ It’s an expression I hear very often while I’m painting. It’s fun to be part of people’s experiences here.”