More than 100 naked people became the artist's canvases on the occasion of the third annual NYC Body-painting Day 2016. They gathered to paint the town red, green, blue, orange, magenta and neon yellow. The theme for this year’s event was “inner beauty”.

The event celebrates the freedom of artistic expression and body acceptance. The volunteer models, including Charles Darius painted their body at the Manhattan’s Dag Hammarskjold Plaza, outside the United Nations headquarters.
After a few hours of painting, they boarded on double-decker buses to show their art show throughout the city.

A participant Darius, whose parents are from Europe and took him to nude beaches often when he was a child, said that, “I enjoy being nude.”  “It’s a pleasure to indulge in that enjoyment on a sidewalk in Manhattan.”

The event received huge appreciation from the onlookers. They snapped photos and shoot videos on their cellphones. They encouraged the models, who endured two or three hour painting sessions on an overcast day with temperatures in the low 70s.

According to the artist Andy Golub, who painted bodybuilder Vanessa Adams, created NYC Body-painting Day as a way to promote human connection through art.

Adams, participating for the first time, said she had a bit of the jitters standing naked in front of scores of people.

“Let’s hurry up and paint my face so I’ll be incognito,” she said. “If I’m green, no one will know it’s me.”

Public nudity is legal in the New York when it’s for artistic purposes, such as a performance, a play or an art show. But Golub and model Zoe West were arrested in 2011 during a body-painting project in Times Square. West sued over the arrest, and the city paid her a $15,000 settlement.

Nandini