By Tara Kyle
DNAinfo Reporter/Producer
GREENWICH VILLAGE — The naked male form, depicted in Crayola and watercolor, oil and pencil, took center stage Monday night at the LGBT Center’s "Muscle Beach Sexy Art Party."
“As a gay man, you just love the male figure and you never get tired of it,” said a 49-year-old artist who calls himself Shungaboy, while standing in front of his own painting, a deep purple acrylic work that envisions the Statue of Liberty as a male nude.
For the 100 artists and 30 models involved in the Queer Men’s Erotic Art Workshop, a weekly "erotic drawing class" at the LGBT center, the show is an annual event celebrating pieces produced during the classes.
It is also the result of a decade long passion for workshop founder and NoLIta resident Harvey Redding, 61.
“I was bored stiff with life drawing in New York and thought, why can’t this be sexy… and the models so alluring you literally can’t hold your pencil,” said Redding.
With the support of the Leslie/Lohman Gay Art Foundation, he started the workshop in 2000 with just 14 artists and one Harlequin romance novel cover model.
Now, the workshop has spawned a series of art books, including “Dirty Little Drawings,” and the most recent title, “Stripped.”
For the models, the work presents different challenges than traditional art workshop posing.
“What they’re after is a little more of a show than a model,” said Stephen Workman, a 28-year-old East Village resident whose previous experience includes modeling for the School of Visual Arts. “It’s almost a party. You stand there naked and try to come up with an idea of what might be arousing."
Redding is also motivated by creating a sense of community among his members, who range in age “from 21 to 81” and come from a variety of professional backgrounds.
“The gay community is so huge, and it’s not always very cohesive,” said artist Mike Russnak, a 32-year-old East Village resident who said the class has helped him move beyond simple pencil drawings to decorative painting techniques. “The art unifies everybody.”
