Erotic Watercolors of Stewart Fletcher

Contemporary Canadian artist Stewart Fletcher, based in Montreal, specialises in the portrayal of the human body and its sensual aspects. Something that stands out immediately to me about Fletcher’s work is how outstandingly prolific he is. He is hard-working, persistent and devoted to capturing the female form in all its beauty and sensuality. Another interesting thing is his endless exploration of a few similar motifs such as women lying on the couch, couples caught in the act of sex, close-ups of vulvas; Fletcher explores all these with the same relentless passion and curiosity with which Monet explored his haystacks, cathedrals and water lilies. Fletcher’s erotic drawings and paintings are at once intimate and mythic, tender and unafraid, private yet illuminated with the electricity of public desire. His art does not simply depict the erotic; it interrogates it, dissects it and ultimately sanctifies it. Instead of presenting us with a sanitised, flawless aesthetic of the algorithmic beauty that we find nowadays on Instagram and other social media, Fletcher returns to the flesh, to texture, to the imperfect, breathing body. His eroticism is honest rather than idealised; it is made of pores, creases, blush, half-lit shadows, and the emotional tension of being witnessed. In Fletcher’s hands, sex becomes not spectacle but revelation.

Fig.1  Stewart Fletcher, Stephanie Dans Une Chaise Antique

Fig.2   Stewart Fletcher, Stéphanie De Dos

Fig.3   Stewart Fletcher, Stephanie Debout

Fig.4  Stewart Fletcher, Stéphanie Entre Les Poses.

Fig.5  Stewart Fletcher, Stéphanie Sur Le Support De Modèle

Fig.6  Stewart Fletcher, Vendredi Après-Midi

Fig.7  Stewart Fletcher,  Modèle Endormie

Breath Behind the Shadow

One of the most recognizable features of Fletcher’s artistic language is his devotion to the ‘unfinished’ body. He often leaves portions of the figure in sketch, shadow, or transparent wash, thus allowing the viewer to see not only the image, but the process of the body’s awakening to lust, to exploration, to its own becoming. This is not accidental. Fletcher’s unfinishedness is deeply erotic and watercolour is a perfect medium for this. Nowhere is this unfinished element more visible than in these sepia-toned sketches from Fig.8. to Fig.11. Some are more detailed and some of these are almost fully abstract, just a few lines are there to give us the shape of a thigh or a bosom or a woman’s legs in the air, but even this is fascinating; that so little is needed for us to visually recognised the act of making love, as if it is our primal instinct calling out to us. To reveal the process is to reveal the body in a state of emergence; not frozen, not perfected, but alive. The viewer becomes aware of the gesture behind the line, the breath behind the shadow, the hand that lingered on a hip or traced the softness of a thigh. The erotic charge arises from the sense that the body is not a static object but an ongoing experience. The fact that these are so sketchy gives the impression that they were made in a haste, in the heat of the moment, in the seconds of passion before the final culmination.

Fig.8  Stewart Fletcher, Ce Sont Juste De Bonnes Amies

Fig.9  Stewart Fletcher, Femme Sur Le Dessus

Fig.10  Stewart Fletcher, J'adore Quand Tu Me Fais Jouir Dessin

District Seventies Feel

In many of his works, the eyes are obscured or partially erased, focusing attention on mouth, collarbone, stomach and fingertips. The result of this visual selection is a paradoxical intimacy: by denying full identity, Fletcher grants emotional access. The viewer becomes less an outsider and more a participant in the unfolding act of looking. Speaking of the sepia tones in Fletcher’s art, the same taste for these warm, earthy shades is found in the watercolours of nude women from Fig.2. to Fig.5.; these nudes have a distinct seventies feel to them through the use of colours and also in the women’s hairstyles, soft buns with a few strands of hair left to touch their faces. In this sense, I am reminded of David Hamilton’s sensual photographs.

Fig.11   Stewart Fletcher, Après Tout Est Dit Et Fait Il N'y A Que Dessin

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