It's not news that Instagram has some strict censorship rules. The most oft-violated is the one regarding nipples — namely, men can show 'em, but women can't. (And when they do, the offending photos are swiftly removed.) But there's one artist who is working to free the nipple in the hope that nudity can be normalized, not policed. Enter: Claudia Sahuquillo and her body-painting masterpieces.
The artist has filled her newsfeed with gorgeous photos of the female body for months now, baring the nipple while simultaneously avoiding Instagram's iron fist. How exactly? Her art is illustrated across naked breasts, nipples, and every kind of areola, which falls under the social media app's guidelines. And her work matters — a lot.
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Celebrities like Amber Rose have personally experienced the removal of "explicit" photos before. Just last month, the sex positive star had a photo of her bush taken down from the site. And nipples? Well, they've always been a battle — and not just on Instagram, but seemingly everywhere, at least in the US. Hence, the widely popular #freethenipple hashtag and movement.
Huffington Post reported that one blogger, Sara Daniele, attended one of Sahuquillo's live body painting shows and said this of the experience: "The Spanish illustrator is presenting the art project 'Skin is the new canvas,' in which the human body is used as a canvas on which to express its sensibility. The artistic project is to paint naked bodies to provoke immediate reactions and intense emotions, which both the artist and the painted people experience — and of course the present audience."
The bottom line is this: Nudity does not equate to vulgar or crude content. It can be beautiful, unique, and a piece of art meant to be admired, not censored.
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