Vincent Johnson
     Staff Writer

When artist Scott Fray paints his masterful works of art, he does so on canvases that can breathe, smile and speak.

Scott Fray and his wife, Madelyn Greco, make up the professional body painting company, LivingBrush Bodypainting. They are five-time body painting world champions.

Fray and Greco are the only professional body painting artists that have won all five of the bodypainting world championship titles. Having won all the world titles, the couple moved on to the next chapter of their bodypainting careers and created Living Art America, the North American bodypainting championship held in Atlanta, Georgia.

On Sept. 27, for the second year in a row, professional body painting artists will also convene and compete in Greensboro for Living Art Greensboro, which was also founded and organized by Fray and Greco.

“I happen to live in Reidsville, so the folks at ArtsGreensboro asked me to create a flagship event to be part of the 17DAYS Festival,” Fray explained. “That is what Living Art Greensboro is.”

This year, Living Art Greensboro will be held five days before the Living Art America competition in Atlanta. The Greensboro competition will be held at Revolution Mill and will feature professional body painting artists from all over the world.

“The level of talent is as high as anywhere on the planet,” Fray said. “People may be surprised to hear this, but you cannot see this show or anything like it in New York City. You can’t see it in San Francisco. You can’t see it in Miami. You can’t see it in Chicago. You can’t see it anywhere except Atlanta and Greensboro.”

The theme of this year’s Living Art Greensboro competition will be “Days of Future Past.”

“It’s judged by international protocols, and people are going to be able to see artists start from nothing and create in six hours this masterpiece of intricate, beautiful fine art, using a gorgeous human being as a canvas,” Fray explained. “So they’ll get to see that happen in real time. They’ll see it start from nothing and come to a state of completion while they watch.”

The competition portion of Living Art Greensboro will start at 2 p.m., and will be followed by a brief judging period. During the judging portion of the competition, bodypainting artists will meet with an international panel of judges to present and explain the artistic processes behind their work. The judges will score the artists based on factors such as quality, relevance to the theme, creativity and color sets. According to Fray, the panel will bring a wide variety of assessment factors into the equation for judging.

The evening show portion of Living Art Greensboro will include a fashion show featuring the painted models, a musical performance by jazz vocalist Sarah Strable and an aerial arts performance by Triad Aerial Arts. It will begin at 6:30 p.m.

“We have a variety of different kinds of performances,” Fray added. “There’s definitely a focus on fine art. It will be as intricate, gorgeous, layered and masterful as anything you can see anywhere on the planet.”

Though bodypainting is a popular art form in other parts of the world, it is slowly gaining popularity in the United States, which can clearly be seen by the emergence of the Living Arts competitions and the reality television series, “Skin Wars.”

“For whatever reason, it’s just not something that has gained traction in America yet, but that [is] quickly changing,” Fray noted. “There is all kinds of popularity that’s brewing.”

In addition to painting in and creating body painting competitions, Fray and Greco also judge at competitions around the world. They even got married on the main stage of the world body painting festival in Austria this year.

Additionally, the couple broke the Guinness World Record in 2007 for body painting the largest amount of people at one time.

“The larger number that we were able to achieve was 367 and we had people who were everywhere from two to 82, and every body shape and size that you can imagine,” Fray said as he described the experience. “We made art with all of the people on this field, and we put a photographer in a helicopter and we photographed the art that we had made from high above. Everybody felt a sense of elation and triumph. It was terrific.”

Though Fray makes his living working in advertising, web design and other forms of commercial art, no other art form fulfills him quite like body painting does.

“There’s nothing I’ve ever done that gets the over the top, electric response that body painting gets,” Fray reflected. “Body painting is the most completely impactful art form I’ve ever experienced. People just love it. It’s just amazing. It really energizes people!”

Painting on a body is an entirely different experience than painting on a traditional canvas, according to Fray.

“Painting on the body is extraordinary because your canvas has a soul,” Fray mused. “Our canvas can jump and scream and dance and run. It can look back at you as you look at it. It can behold you as you behold it. The art can engage with you in a way that no other art form can.”

Fray and Greco also strongly promote body positivity through their art. They paint on beautiful human bodies of all shapes and sizes.

“It’s our intention to celebrate the body,” Fray explained. “Every experience that you have in this life, you will have through the vehicle of your body. We have models that are of all shapes and sizes and we believe that you should love your body. We are absolutely pro-positive body image. We feel that our culture has a lot of shame around the body, and we think that is an inheritance of an older time and that it’s unhealthy. What we are doing is all about loving the body.”

Fray strongly encourages Greensboro residents to take advantage of this exceptional opportunity to see this form of art take place in live action. Seeing this kind of art at Living Art Greensboro will be a highly unique experience.

“I hope that the people of Greensboro realize that this is a real jewel, that this is something special,” Fray assured. “It really is not something that can be seen almost anywhere else in the world, let alone the U.S.A. So the thing that would thrill me most is to see a lot of happy, smiling faces there that really are enjoying the work.”

Tickets to Living Art Greensboro can be found at www.carolinatheatre.com/events-calendar-details.aspx?id=1356.