Nude in nature with Elsa Marie Keefe
Nude in nature with Elsa Marie Keefe
An artist’s insights into naturist philosophy and creativity
I first discovered Elsa Marie Keefe when she appeared on Naked and Afraid last October. Her survivalist performance on the show was memorable for its challenges, as she and her partner faced extreme heat and scarce resources in the wilds of South Africa. The editors of the show, doing what editors do, portrayed the worst moments of her struggle in order to enhance the conflict—and thusly, audience engagement—within the episode. Although it was evident that Elsa had some difficulties with the survival aspects of the challenge, she and her partner toiled through it with grace and humility, and overall, her unique personality and spirit made a positive impression on me. I watch the show a lot so I know that the challenges can be extremely trying. I am certain that I could never do it.
Not long after the episode aired, I stumbled upon Elsa’s Instagram profile and began to follow her journey more closely. Through that platform I was exposed to her art, which often integrates the human figure with natural elements and collage, and I was immediately captivated by it. The longer I followed her, the more I realized that, though I wasn’t sure if she explicitly identifies as a naturist, her art and viewpoints certainly resonate with naturist principles. Her work explores themes like body positivity, societal oppression, and spirituality, in ways that appear to align closely with my own naturist values, and the values of many naturists in this community. Clearly, I’m not the first to make this connection, as she has been profiled in H&E Magazine, and collaborated with the folks at Nudism.TV.
Elsa has also engaged with the naturist community in other ways, attending events in New York City where she lived for many years. She has visited Sunsport Gardens in Florida, and even photographed the club’s recently departed paterfamilias, Morley Schloss, who has found his way into at least one of her artworks, much to my delight. As it turns out, Elsa embraces the naturist label, though she admits she’s not the card-carrying type.
Elsa’s art is visually striking and deeply thought-provoking, challenging societal norms and stigmas, and encouraging a profound connection with nature. Her pieces celebrate the human form in its most natural state and invite viewers to reflect on their own relationships with their bodies and the natural world. For readers of this newsletter, Elsa’s perspective offers valuable insights and a refreshing viewpoint that can enrich our ongoing conversations about body freedom and self-acceptance.
During our interview, which was transcribed from audio messages sent by SMS, Elsa shared insights into her creative process and experiences, offering glimpses into her unique point of view. Her reflections hint at a journey filled with challenges and revelations, all of which shape her remarkable art. I hope you’ll enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed hearing it. 🚀
Your work often integrates the human figure with natural elements. Can you discuss how your experiences and beliefs influence your creative process?
My work is based in a photographic practice that stems from early childhood experiences of creating art and being naked in nature with my family all over the world. I remember camping and spending time on nude beaches, in the woods, and at waterfalls where clothing was not necessary. I didn’t grow up with religion, but for us, we found God in nature. Our church was in the elements in the woods, or by the seaside. So I've always had great reverence for the natural world.
When I was three years old, I received my first set of colored pencils and art supplies. Art was always my passion and something that I carried with me over the years as I grew up. Then in college, I found fine art photography and my practice went from being a hobby to becoming a real career option.
My creative process has transformed as I’ve grown into an adult. My art practice started with drawing and painting when I was a young child, and I started photography around the age of 10 with a Polaroid camera. As I got a little bit older, I continued my photographic practice on my first travels to Europe. I loved travel photography and I utilized that as one of my main passions and outlets for my mental health. I was also very passionate about making collages in high school. Later on in my mid-twenties, my art practice as therapy once again, and I started playing around with resin. I added resin to some dried flowers and leaves that I had collected over the years. I just fell in love with the outcome, and so that was really the true beginning of my mixed media practice.
The naked human photographed in nature is the basis of all my work, but my favorite way of presenting my art is by adding crystals, leaves, flowers, bones, stones, sand, any objects that I find or collect in nature, adding those to the photograph that I print on a canvas and adhere to a wooden panel. Then I add a little bit of paint and encase the final piece in resin. So that’s my mixed media collection that I feel the most passionate about and that’s the most fun to create. That being said, it costs the most money to make these pieces. So every single one takes quite a bit of time planning and savings. The final components of my art practice are video work and performance art, as well as bookmaking.
Your work tackles significant themes like sexuality, societal oppression, and spirituality. How do you balance these heavy themes with the inherent vulnerability of yourself as a subject, and any other subjects?
It is definitely difficult to balance heavy themes within my work with the vulnerability of photographing myself, loved ones, and strangers as the subject. However, I believe that it’s so important to talk about the harder and less popular topics in life. So much of our existence and experience as humans on this planet revolves around these topics. Art has always been a way of expressing my own experience.
For example, sexuality was a topic that was very hard for me to discuss for years, as my work was solely about observing and promoting the innocence of the human form in nature. But as I got older, I started looking into my own sexual experiences and wanting to heal my own trauma.
I balance the vulnerability by photographing myself when I feel called to, and working with other humans and subjects that I naturally meet through the course of my life. I never hire models. So there is an inherent vulnerability that comes within the photographic experience, but every time I shoot myself or another human, a great amount of healing takes place on both sides of the camera. There is healing, catharsis, and self-love that happens when we realize that we are all a work of art.
I understand you’ve facilitated women’s healing circles and collaborative photographic experiences, is this right? Can you share some insights on how these activities intersect with and inform your artistic practice?
Yes, I have facilitated a number of nude women’s healing circles and also healing circles for both women and men at various nude and naturist festivals. These experiences have been some of the most rewarding and beautiful moments of my life. I remember at my very first healing circle in New York City, I had one woman come from the Hasidic Jewish community who had never been naked outside of getting changed in her bedroom. I also had people suffering from the loss of loved ones who came to get naked, sit in a circle, and talk and bond with other women. I find that it’s extremely special to come together as a group and take off one’s clothes as it gives us all a chance to break down the barriers of clothing, brands, labels, and looks that stand between us as humans.
At the end of the day, we are all born naked. We all die naked. We all exist nude underneath our clothing. It is one of the many things that we all have in common as humans. I find that when you strip down literally and figuratively, you are able to bond with the people around you on a level that is otherwise hard to access.
I took a coaching course and got my certification for life coaching, and I’ve utilized some of the teachings and practices within the group coaching space. Not only have these spaces completely transformed my own mind in terms of opening up conversation around the naked body and around body image and judgment, but it’s also been a chance for great liberation among every participant.
Your participation in Naked and Afraid last year was how I first became aware of you. Thematically speaking, your being on the show seems to fit with your art in a very real way. How did the experience of being naked in nature on the show relate to and influence your artistic portrayal of nudity in natural settings?
It is so wonderful to know that you found out about me through Naked and Afraid. That was definitely a very intense experience. If you Google me and that episode, there is a lot of negativity surrounding my experience on that show, which is congruent with the negative digital landscape that we find ourselves in today across all online media platforms.
Believe it or not, some of the casting directors for that show reached out to me a few years ago and asked me if I wanted to participate in the reality show. At the time, I was living in Brooklyn, and it was kind of in the middle of COVID. So, of course, my schedule was a little bit free, and so I said yes. That being said, I did not think I would make it on the show as I only have a small amount of experience surviving out in the wild. And whatever experience I do have has been dampened a bit by living in the city for so long. However, I also know that my main passion is being naked in nature, and this experience overall exemplifies that passion. It gave me an opportunity to practice what I preach. Even though I did not have a lot of formal survival training, I believe very strongly that we should all have the skills to survive and live off the land in an ideal world.
When they accepted me, of course, I was shocked. I took a few survival classes and I went onto the show. I wouldn’t say that the experience influenced my art practice at all, as I was creating art for almost ten years prior. So in many ways, it was just a continuation of my experience of being naked in nature. And of course, the easiest part for me on the show was being naked in nature, except for at night. It was so extremely cold that I wished I had a blanket or a sweatshirt, but other than that, being naked didn’t phase me at all.
Overall, I’m extremely grateful for the opportunity. There’s of course much more to say on that, but, I definitely learned that we are much stronger and more capable than we think we are as humans. We are able to endure more than our brains can conceive.
In your artist statement, you mention confronting the collateral effects of the porn industry on body image. How do you navigate and challenge these societal narratives through your art?
Yes, the collateral effects of the porn industry have been destructive to the human psyche across cultures. I challenge these side effects and I challenge this topic through my art, most specifically with the vulva project, where I document my own long labia and speak about the variations in shapes and sizes of all parts of our body, but specifically the sexual organs.
In my late twenties, I started questioning my own sexuality and my own traumas that I had accrued in my early twenties. Through this, I even started working at a strip club to experiment with working in different jobs that might feel better for my soul. It turned out that working at a strip club was not my cup of tea—even though I love pole dancing—but through this time period, I was around a lot of naked women, and I really started realizing how my labia looked different than everybody else’s. I would constantly try to tuck them in. Then, upon discussing this with my close friends at the time—which felt very avant-garde or very edgy—I began to realize that other women also thought that they had long labia and were embarrassed too.
That’s when I found out about labiaplasty. Labiaplasty is among the top plastic surgeries for women around the world. Women actually go into surgery, typically at a very young age, to get their labia cut off. Why do they do this? Well, because they don’t think that it's normal to have long labia when, in reality, it is completely normal. The only reason that women and men think that you should not have labia at all or they should not be long is because of the porn industry. I feel very passionately about this topic as I was extremely lucky as a child in that the first time that I saw the naked body was not in porn.
I realized that many of my peers were raised—especially in American families— to try to cover up their body parts and further the shame within their families. As I started reflecting on this more, I became extremely sad, realizing that most of our children, most of my peers, actually learned about the naked human body, specifically about our sexual organs and body parts, through watching porn.
I think this is extremely disheartening. And that is why I am so passionate about documenting my own vulva and labia—and those of my friends and strangers that participate in the project—and showing how bodies look. Not just bodies from far away but close up. Closeups of hands, arms, eyes, labia, you name it.
At first, I was really scared to share this work, and then finally, I mustered up the confidence to share these photographs and my feelings and thoughts on my Patreon page. When I first started photographing it, I shared a whole essay I wrote on the word pussy and vagina, the interplay between the two, and many topics and thoughts around the porn industry. As soon as I uploaded this to my Patreon page, the website warned me that it was going to delete my entire page and history. I became very sad and quickly deleted the post. Then I remembered one of my nude model friends told me about a website called OnlyFans, where she was also able to make residual income from some of her nude-in-nature modeling jobs. So I decided to start posting there, not realizing how much of a stigma that website had. To this day, I utilize OnlyFans as it is the only platform where I’m allowed to post my vulva project photos and share this aspect of my work.
About a year ago, I was extremely censored and deleted. I was called names by a low-vibe, dark-energy Instagram influencer who made false allegations to his 200,000 followers. As a result of this, my website through Squarespace was deleted, and I received death threats, and a million other things fell apart.
This was a really hard moment to come back from, and since then, I’ve tried to get in touch with the CEOs of Squarespace, but everything is automated AI censorship and robots online. Finally, I was able to get a message back from somebody at Squarespace, and they told me they deleted my website because I had porn on it. I was devastated as my intentions have always been to actually counteract the porn industry. The only thing on my website remotely close to this was my vulva project, where I actually had a huge essay speaking out against the porn industry and why it was important to showcase long labia in an artistic way. Of course, there was no actual human to speak to, and I’m still struggling to get in touch with someone.
Everybody I meet in person, who I speak with in person about this, understands what I’m doing and loves the project. In fact, I showed my first large-scale mixed media piece—size forty by sixty inches—of my own vulva, with crystals and bones and leaves and paint, to my friend who’s probably sixty years old and very religious, and she absolutely loved it. She completely understood where I was coming from and what I was trying to do. So these are the moments where I feel very disheartened and sad about the online world and the digital landscape at large.
You’ve had many exhibitions in some very different locations. How do different audiences react to your work, and what have you learned from these varied interactions?
I feel extremely grateful to have had the opportunity to exhibit my work in such a wide variety of locations and galleries, especially around New York City.
Like I mentioned in my last answer, I have only received great feedback in person. I cannot even think of one instance where somebody who sees my art in the flesh does not completely understand it or love it. When I’m at a show and people walk by and don’t talk to me, I just assume that they’re not interested, which is completely fine. There’s plenty of art out there that does not intrigue me visually. I think we all have our own personal taste when it comes to art.
As much as I love the process of making my art, showing my art in galleries, fairs, and shows of all kinds is extremely important. Not only because it brings in some money to help me continue to do my work and sustain the practice, but also because I have extremely meaningful conversations—with strangers, friends, acquaintances, really anyone who walks by—about the type of art that I do. It’s so much fun talking about the naked body, what that means to each and every human, and how that relates to the world at large. It’s really been a spectacular experience and I cannot wait to have more art shows in the future.
I actually have a show coming up during Art Basel called Adam and Eve, and it’s the 5th anniversary of this show coming December 6th, 2024 where I will be exhibiting some work and also having a very special performance piece with my dear friend, soulmate, and colleague Delfina Giuntini.
How does your relationship with nudity outside of your art influence your creative work? Do you identify as a naturist, and if so, how does that identity shape your artistic vision?
I never identified as a nudist until I went to my first naked dinner party in New York City. As soon as I left that event, I told all my old best friends that I was a naturist. Everybody laughed as they said they always knew that, as I had been making naked art for a while. That being said, I’ve always struggled with labels. I did start using the label nudist or naturist for myself around this time in my mid to late twenties.
However, depending on how you define this, I am not a true nudist or naturist. I don’t crank up the heat in my house just to be hot enough to be naked. For me, it’s all about being naked in nature and the elements absorbing vitamin D from the sun and embracing the negative ions, absorbing the vitamins from the earth’s surface, and stabilizing my electrical body from the earth’s energy system. This is one of the main narratives in my art, along with body positivity and innocence versus sexuality, grounding and earthing, and being naked in nature. That being said, I will be naked inside my house if I’m really hot. But on the other side of that coin, I love being cozy with blankets, sweatshirts, and sweatpants whenever possible.
In this way, I wouldn’t say that naturism informed my art. In fact, if anything, my art informed and facilitated my naturist practice. After years of getting naked in nature to take photographs, I realized that I felt very comfortable in my skin. This is what eventually led me to attend this naked dinner party in New York and thereafter call myself a naturist.
As someone who promotes a healthy perspective on body positivity through your art and collaborations, what do you hope viewers and participants take away from engaging with your work?
I hope that viewers of my work realize and are able to see the beauty in all bodies; all shapes, sizes, and colors. I hope that the viewers and people who encounter my work, whether it’s in galleries or online, come to realize and see the beauty in themselves by observing and witnessing the beauty in others.
For, in the end, we are all one. 🪐
Great article
An awesome post