What I learned when I posed for a naked 'pandemic portrait'
Increasing numbers of women are choosing to have nude pandemic portraits painted, Aisling O'Leary among them. Here she bares all...
16 February 2021 • 2:21pm
Like increasing numbers of women, Aisling had a nude portrait of herself painted
Credit: Christopher Pledger
It was late on a Saturday morning in early December when I knew I couldn’t put it off any longer; I’d have to get naked. To take a nude selfie - my first ever - and send it to someone I had never met.
Above my bed sits Modigliani’s painting ‘Female Nude’ so I found myself looking to her for guidance on how to pose. The sitter’s peace with her body is reassuring. But I didn’t want to be sleepily passive in how I presented my body, but rather completely awake and in control.