Recently, we asked 10 local artists to submit their sexiest works of art and tell us a little about the works. We’re not sure which is more compelling: the works or the artists’ explanations which include detailed explanations of Freudian theories and the sexiness of “women who don’t take shit” and simple statements such as, “I like pink. I like squishy boobs. And I like to paint pretty girls.”
1 “There’s nothing sexier than glamour — it has been defined as a magic spell or an exciting illusion,” Kazilla says of her acrylic on canvas “She’s Got It In Spades.” “This girl is playing with a full deck. Although she has a veil, her intrigue couldn’t hide those golden eyes. She sees past that poker face and gets into your membrane and makes you go a little insane. That’s what being a girl is. It’s exciting. It’s secret. It’s sexy.”
2 NF Romero says “Hustle Collective: Seduction,” his mixed-media work that’s on view at the tattoo-shop chain Chico’s Marked 4 Life’s VIP Room in West Kendall, was a collaboration with Miami artist Fiftythree. “His graffiti influence can be seen as the background, and my influence is the woman,” Romero explains. “The model [Stacey Vaughn] was shot in a darkly lit room with no flash, and I made sure to keep that quality by not modifying the reference while painting it. I believe that strong-willed women who don’t take shit are intensely sexy; the kind that will beat your ass if you take it too far.”
3 “I like pink. I like squishy boobs. And I like to paint pretty girls,” Japanda says of her inspiration for the oil-on-canvas titled “Heart-Shaped Box.” “She’s my interpretation of an Ero-Lolita,” Japanda reveals. “Lolita is a fashion subculture in Japan that draws its inspiration from Victorian and Rococo fashion, and it’s one of my main inspirations for all of my work.”
4 “Give and Take,” Teresa Korber’s acrylic- and spray-paint-on-canvas work, addresses the game of love. “Give and take — a couple embracing each other, both giving and taking from one another,” Korber explains. “If you look closely, there are written messages in the backgrounds such as me duele tanto, meaning hurts so bad; the words pido, pido, pido meaning ask, ask, ask and tuya mi corazon meaning mine my love.
5 Tara Houck says the untitled photograph she shot for Seven Deadly Sins, one of the monthly Art Nouveau events presented by Teresa Korber at the Lounge in West Palm Beach, was done at the last minute and turned out just as she had hoped. “The models I chose for this shoot had never met before, but knowing both of their personalities and energies, I knew the flow of the shoot would be spectacular,” she says. “This particular image represents pride. He is very confident as she holds him tightly. The intensity of the connection between the lovers shows an incredible sense of their souls being at total balance and proud of the bond they posses.”
6 Iain Barnes, a.k.a. 5, says much of his recent art is about “erasing the stigma of sexy in connection with the act of sex.” “Max’d Out,” his mixed-media stencil work on stone tile, is from his series on models. “I’m currently working on a transition work that starts off illustrating models that mutate into porn stars and escorts,” Barnes says. “The concept is to describe how men and marketing objectify women as sex objects, in turn lowering the true level of their sex appeal.” This work, Barnes says, can be seen on Oxygen’s Bad Girls Club Miami when the reality show’s fifth season premieres Aug. 3.
7 “Protect and Serve,” a mixed-media work by Carrie Sieh, is from Consuming Passion, her series about gender ideals in the United States. “There’s always an abundance of art about women being sexy, celebrating the female body,” she says. “Sometimes, it’s about the desire that women and femininity arouse in others, and sometimes, it’s a sort of reclaiming of the female sexual experience as active instead of passive.” Sieh has explored those ideas in paintings before, but her current series moves away from a heterosexual dialogue about gender and focuses in part on the cultural ideals of masculinity. Some people, she says, assume that a picture of a sexy, naked woman is for men and encourages them to view women as sexual objects, or that ideals of femininity are fixed and universal. Sieh maintains that human sexuality is more interesting and complicated than that. She cites Freud’s theory that everyone is born with an innate capacity for bisexuality and the potential to find erotic fulfillment in most anything. But most people consider sexuality in terms of polarities, Sieh says. “With the idea of opposites comes the idea of unavoidable opposition or conflict — the so-called battle of the sexes — because how can people who are opposite from each other both be happy with the same thing? I think that much of what 
shapes our sexuality in this country is ultimately damaging, so the paintings are in some ways a critique. But they are also an expression of optimism, of a move away from a limited understanding of human sexuality and towards a more-utopian experience.”
8 Reinier Gamboa considers “Ice” his sexiest work. “What makes it sexy is the combination of strength and fragility in her expression,” he says of his oil on canvas that hangs in a private collection.
9 “Good Vibrations” is from Jukebox, TJ Ahearn’s collage-on-album-covers series in which each work relates to a song from the corresponding album. “I make these hand-cut collages using vintage Playboy and other magazines to evoke the spirit of the music of the ’60s and early ’70s, a time of a tremendous shift culturally and socially,” says the artist better known as Art and Culture Center curator Jane Hart. “The electric, eye-popping colors emit a charge expressing the unbridled idealism and activism of those heady times. [“Good Vibrations”] is as exuberant as the Beach Boy’s smash hit song of the same title. The warmth and happiness of the California sun is represented by the radiating burst of yellow at the center of the composition. The golden iconic Playboy Bunny gazes back at the viewer with promises of pleasure and unadulterated fun. The whole world is bursting with the explosion of ‘sexual liberation’ and good times in this slice of the American Dream.”
10 Photographer Kris Starry says her bathtub portraits of local tattoo artist Katya Neptune, and Stefanie Merullo (the hairstylist also known as artist Polly Peachums) “show that you can be dirty but squeaky clean at the same time. They bare all without 
baring all. They leave you longing for more.” These women were among the first to pose for Starry’s series of tattooed female artists taking bubble baths. The entire series, she says, will be on view during an art festival that will run from Aug. 7 to Sept. 25 at the Shacknow Museum of Fine Arts in Plantation.
