This study analyzes artworks by a professional fine-art bodypainter. This artist used his models’ bodies as both inspiration and canvas. The bodies/artworks were then photographed and the resulting images were hung as finished pieces in his gallery. Through semiotic analysis of the artworks and discourse analysis of interviews with the artist, relationships between the human body and artistic conventions were explored and fine-art bodypainting was discussed as an art form. The painted images are copies of natural forms that have been (...) reinterpreted in new “living” forms, as they are painted onto and in relation to a living body. These living canvases change the contextual interpretations of the original painted images in integral ways. The completed photographs resist categorization as mere simulacra because their intentionally questioning construction asks us to rethink the relationships between artist, subject, and observer. (shrink)

This study analyzed several body writing artworks by a poet/artist whose poems served as the inspirations for his artistic compositions. One of the poems served as both a catalyst for the artworks as well as a motivated element in the artworks that helped to signify the artist's meaning. Through semiotic analysis of the artworks, relationships between the poetic text, the body text, and the body writing construct were explored. These artworks conveyed a multiplicity of meanings that seemed both superimposed and (...) refracted, one upon another like the reflections in a mirrored room. The inscribed text on the body served as both a linguistic and artistic element that imparted a multi-faceted level of meaning to the artworks as a whole. (shrink)

Different social scientists have looked at the ways in which dress and appearance may be semiotically understood and how these meanings are interpreted by members of a common culture. Dress is but one factor that informs the initial impressions members may make about an individual as they speculate on the motivations or message that the individual (intentionally or unintentionally) broadcasts based on their external appearance. This study analyzed teacher drawings (by students) for teacher dress and appearance. Results of visual, semiotic (...) analyses showed that teachers were most often dressed in casual, uncomplicated clothing in hues of blue and black. These dress choices may transmit particular messages regarding teachers and the teaching profession, not only with regard to the preservice teachers who drew them, but arguably to the larger culture to which these preservice teachers belong. These externally-fashioned messages about teachers may also contribute to ideologies which may affect preservice teacher recruitment, morale, and self-identity. (shrink)