Genevieve Gandi ‘Omenala‘ by Matiss
Not long after I began evaluating the Met Art erotic photo series titled “Omenala,” I began to feel a bit of déjà vu. The more I looked, the stronger the feeling became, but with a bit of searching I realised the feeling wasn’t imaginary — I had been there before! This set by Matiss was shot on a sunny day in the mountains, mainly against what might be a retaining wall for an unseen road. The artist employed the same location for a set I critiqued over a year ago, and it’s just unusual enough to have made an impression.
It is a somewhat unlikely location, and adding a beautiful, glamorous model like Genevieve Gandi accentuates this fact. Genevieve Gandi is topless and wearing a pair of tight jeans and high heeled sandals when the set opens. It’s a large set — 155 total images — and the model has ample opportunity to experiment with poses and attitudes. As the series progresses the jeans come off, a bit of fabric appears to make the gravelly ground more comfortable, and Genevieve Gandi moves away from the rustic retaining wall. And this is where the set begins to sizzle.
Genevieve Gandi has a natural and genuine exuberance — she’s full of energy and appears to be having a lot of fun posing. But when she’s seated on the ground, reclining, or up on all fours, she trades her happy-go-lucky attitude for something far more steamy and seductive. And as Genevieve Gandi’s mood changes, so do the compositions Matiss chooses. In the final third of the set the explicit images are abundant, detailed, and enticing. In #096 and #098, to pick a pair of mouthwatering examples, the succulent beauty of Erica’s intimate anatomy is stunningly captured at close range.
But the charms of “Omenala” and Genevieve Gandi are many, and the model’s other assets — a shapely rump, long, wavy hair, luscious lips, and light blue eyes — are artfully captured in less than explicit shots like #063 (a beautiful headshot) and #109 (with the model on all fours).
Preview Gallery: Omenala
Art Nude Models: Met Art information.
