Francisco De la Barra, Oka 10 (2024)

Francisco De la Barra
Oka 10
2024
ink on Arches paper
16 x 12 inches
 
 
"The source material for these works comes from a series of photos I took last summer in Oka, near Montreal. The Oka National Park is on the Lac des Deux Montagnes. It is immensely popular in the summer, and has a gay naturist beach close to a forest. I was looking at men walking naked in the woods, overshadowed by trees, and I asked a friend of mine, who had modelled for me once, to walk there while I would be following and photographing him.
 
I was interested to make photos of his body seen through the leaves and branches of the lower canopy. This produced images where body and nature intersect. The masculine body and the natural landscape are two important subjects in my work, and these images gave me the opportunity of having them cohabit in a single piece. In my work, I often use clothing as a negative space. Here, I did the same with the branches of the trees, introducing elements of abstraction where two organic motifs, the male body and the vegetal form, are in a dialogue.
 
I didn’t want to use green to paint the leaves. I used magenta instead, enhancing the abstract quality of these organic shapes that are contrasting and connecting with the black and white parts of the bodies. The summer warmth of the flesh transferred to the leaves of the trees. I like the lyrical result that this creates.
 
Ultimately, with these pieces, my goal was to represent the body moving in nature as a metaphor of the individual in the quest for freedom, the body as the ultimate manifestation of our individuality, free from constraints of the spaces where the body is held, free in nature, being part of nature, being natural."
 
-- Francisco De la Barra, 2024