Fresh off her brush with First Amendment celebrity, Lafayette artist Nicole Touchet — she of the Nipple-gate controversy last month — will host a “living arts installation” on Festival Saturday at the soon-to-open Parlor salon and art gallery on Jefferson Street.
“I have envisioned a living, breathing arts installation that can move freely throughout the Festival by the vehicle of the human body,” Touchet says in a press release announcing the event. “I invite any person wishing to support the cause — offer your body as a canvas for an afternoon of defiance against the societal norms of covering your breasts in public. I will be reintroducing the female body to the community as an organic vessel, beautifully rendered in paint. I wish to desensitize the negative perception female breasts have in society. Society is allowed to put a price tag on our bodies, while we aren’t even allowed to ‘have’ them for ourselves. Our bodies are simply nude — not pornographic. Free the nipple. Support the arts.”
We couldn’t have said it better ourselves.
Touchet adds that the body painting will be done “in accordance with current laws.”
Parlor salon/gallery is located at 207 Jefferson St. The body-painting event will take place from 2-4 p.m. Saturday. The salon/gallery will also be celebrating its soft opening during the installation.