“A few people on the organising committee told me that my painting could not be shown because my nipples were too erect.

“It is not as if I am knocking things off shelves with them when I go shopping.

“I use myself as the model in front of a mirror because it saves paying someone else and I paint late at night when I cannot expect another model to pose for me.

“I cannot apologise for my nipples being erect because, luckily, they have always looked this way.

“This is not hard or even soft porn. It is just a beautiful, sensual painting with a lot of feeling in it.

“Nudes have been exhibited in galleries for hundreds of years. The paintings in London’s National Gallery are far more explicit than this. Do they want to close that down too?

“I cannot imagine anyone being offended in this day and age when we have Page 3 girls in newspapers.”

[From Nude self-portrait banned from art exhibition because artist’s nipples ‘were too erect’ | Mail Online]

there is little to say about this one really, the painting is harmless, but what gets me is the specific nature of the complaint. I just had to giggle to be honest! what a ridiculous claim. I feel sorry for the artist, sitting with the curators of this gallery, with whom she has an existing long term relationship, and candidly discussing how much nipple is too much. and how out there should a nipple be?

as some of you know I’ve given long thought to nipples, they are a recurring theme in my works in a “now you see them now you don’t” sort of way and I frequently feel they can make or break a piece. the nipples in question here are perfectly normal everyday nipples in my opinion. they aren’t that extreme or in your face. nipples have been in the news a bit lately from airbrushing them for a press conference by the Prime Minister of Rome to the use of styrofoam plates in covering up nipples in Virginia.

what is so wrong about nipples?