Hiding Nude (2020) Dibujo por Edwin Loftus

In a rural setting, a young woman suns herself, nude, behind the shelter of a group of boulders. She hears a man and his dogs passing on the nearby path and recognizes that the dogs could sense her presence and lead the man to her. It is a moment of suspense, will she be "caught" naked? Will it be someone she knows? She does not anticipate any penalty greater than embarrassment, but the potential for something worse exists and she cannot completely dismiss it.
She has learned to live with this kind of concern and not let it control her life and it should be pointed out that all men also live with the risk that they will encounter one of the too many predators among us, (though women face a much greater burden).
In this 'light of reality' this becomes more than a nude woman at risk of being embarrassed. It presents a situation that calls on us to question our tolerance of the people among us that are as much a threat as hunting beasts, natural hazards, diseases, infections and all the million things that can and do harm us.
Why must we live with the human predators that have not matured into the "humane" prerequisite to being a human? When will we stop tolerating this danger among us and do more to lessen this risk?
But there is more to this because humans are complex creatures that evolve as individuals through the course of their lives, because evildoers have become good in our shared experience, and because by mischance and evil deed, innocent humans have been mistaken for predators before. How do we deal more effectively with the guilty while still protecting the innocent?
I do not have answers to these questions. As a representational artist, my role is to raise these questions, it is for each of us as an individual to answer them and ask and answer all of those other many questions related to them. It is through this process we generate and modify our own opinions and through sharing our views with others, we create and constantly recreate the foundations of civilization.
In a few paragraphs of reflection this image has expanded in implication from the simple question: Why is it tolerable that this woman feels insecure just because she isn't clothed? It has become thousands of questions and factors to be considered to reach the point where that simple question can be intelligently considered, let alone answered.

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