ArtHub

Equatorial Guinea Bodypainting Festival

It’s an annual art festival where one sees displays of colorful painted beauties of Africa.  Artists from 18 countries around the world gather alongside local artists and transform regular people into art works.  Among the best canvases are women models.

Body painting is a form of body art where a design or patter is painted directly onto the human skin. Unlike tattoos and other forms of body art, body painting is temporary, lasting several hours or sometimes up to a few weeks.

The practice is said to be an ancient art form that has been modernized, and is celebrated around the world. In fact, art historians date various forms of body painting as far back as to the Paleolithic era when indigenous tribes used natural pigments made from ashes, rocks, animal by-products, and plants to decorate their bodies for a range of festivals and tribal rituals. The styles and palettes differ between artists, from the fanciful, nature, style, intricacy, pattern and method. Some artists use metallic body sprays, glow in the dark paints, special custom-ordered colors to simple regular-colored paint.