While Hooters—a restaurant chain that describes itself as "delightfully tacky yet unrefined" and draws patrons for more titillating reasons than its chicken wings—may be a fine family restaurant for the Waterside Festival Marketplace, a drawing of a nude in a Waterside art gallery was deemed inappropriate.
The work, a pastel nude figure drawing by artist and recent Moore College graduate Erika Risko, is currently on view at Mayer Fine Art in a student exhibition titled First Look Norfolk. Norfolk won’t get any looks at the drawing, though; or not how it was intended to be viewed, anyhow.
"The new show has raised eyebrows in Waterside (the bastion of good taste)," joked gallery owner, Sheila Giolitti. "I have been asked to move the piece," which she describes as "a very tame candy-colored nude torso."
Considered too offensive for passersby of the second-floor gallery, which is situated near the entrance from Waterside’s parking garage and whose glass walls showcase the art prominently, Risko’s work has acquired some unique accoutrements in response to the directive.
"I do not have a more discreet wall that is wide enough to accommodate the piece," said Giolitti, "so I have put two paper plates over the nude."
She plans to invite the public to decorate the pasties "in order to give our nude a worthy covering.
"I will supply the glitter and felt tip pens. I think a silly solution to a silly concern is the way to go."
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