FOLEY

The Story Behind Black Tie by Beth Foley

This painting is based on a true story. Names have been changed to protect the not-so-innocent. When you travel in foreign countries, you often feel safer than you really are, and you tend to do things that you wouldn't normally do at home. In my case, while visiting Europe on a traveling scholarship, I met a strange Tunisian on a train. I should have realized, because one of his kneecaps had been shot off, and his father was an "importer" of carpets from Morocco, that something was a little odd. In other words, he wasn't the kind of person I would normally bring home to meet my mother.

Our evening ended in Brussels. I had had too much J&B to drink as we climbed up a mysterious staircase into a room where all the women were naked, except for myself. It wasn't a sleazy joint: instead, it was actually rather classy --all the women wore shoes, for example. And there was no lap-dancing going on: instead, there was lots of witty banter - or at least it seemed that way, since I didn't speak French. Still, you could say that I didn't feel totally comfortable there.

The best way I could think of making myself more at home was to take off all my clothes too.

Later I realized that 1 had put myself in a potentially dangerous situation, and that I was lucky not to have been sold into white slavery or left with any horrible diseases. I can't imagine myself today as a blonde woman in a chador, feeding camels in Saudi Arabia.

Of course, the painting doesn't reflect any of the sordid truth about my lack of judgment in dates. That's why everybody in my painting is sipping chardonnay --and nobody is smoking. But artists can tend to gloss over some aspects of their experiences, so that their work comes across as more uplifting or pristine. As an example, Vermeer lived in poverty yet painted elegant settings. And who knows what those two guys at the picnic were really doing in that Manet painting?

All of the men in this painting are friends of mine; one is my husband. The women were all professional models. The men and women were photographed separately, to the chagrin of most of the men. The guy with the red ribbon is Joseph Chowning, my former art dealer; I wanted him to be the only one in the painting who isn't having any fun.

There's much more material to come from this experience. From this point I'll rely on my past misdeeds, and the tabloid exploits of other people, for my inspiration.

View other galleries: