The collection of photographs in these folders are dedicated to images of the human figure.

I believe in the dignity of the human form. I describe the difference between nudity and nakedness as: in nudity we show respect for the body even while at times showing the result of its brokenness or our human condition, nakedness is the stripping of our human dignity while leaving only exploitation or pornography. It is my hope that these images convey my high respect and believe that we are created in God's image and that the human form is a vessel of beauty. I consider these photographic nudes to be within the long established tradition of "life drawing / painting" and as such very much a part of my art making.

Having spent many years as a "Life Drawing" instructor in the university environment I have worked with the human form throughout these many years of my career. Whether the subject was my own broken body, inflicted by polio at 13 months of age "A Dream memory of the Brace", paintings of the human figure as in my "Sisyphus’ Descendants" works or portraits series "The Saints", I have a long tradition of working with the human form.

While some of the images are meant to be playful, even seductive, it is my strong intent to not be exploitive of the female or male body. I am a husband, the father of a son and daughter; as such I want to convey that the human nude can be beautiful even when portraying consternation. I stand in the long tradition of using the nude in art since humankind first started scratching on the inside of a cave, to the Greeks, Romans and onto our modern age. I see the use of the nude in Caravaggio's "Victorious Cupid", Donatello's "David", Rembrandt's "Bathsheba at Her Bath" (a painting with his wife as the model), Matisse's "Dance", or the photographic work of Robert Mapplethorpe "Charles Bowman" as part of a longstanding 'artistic tradition'.  It is the aforementioned artistic tradition that I place my photographic work with the nude.

Again it is my hope that these images convey my high respect and believe that we are created in God's image and that the human form is a vessel of beauty. Gerard