The Breast Cancer Awareness Body Painting Project

“Ribbon in the Sky” — Model Cindy Papale
(Credit: pinterest.com)

Since 2009, digital artist and photographer Michael Colanero has been working with breast cancer survivors on a project that transforms their physical and emotional scars through body art. With the help of body painters Keegan Hitchcock and Georgette Pressler, Colanero converts his digital designs into one-of-a-kind works of art created especially for each woman with whom he collaborates on a piece.

“All the designs are custom made for each survivor and relate in some way to their character traits, personality, passions, interests,” Colanero says in an interview with Survivors Magazine. At the same time, the project speaks to the entirety of the breast cancer experience, illustrating in a uniquely intimate way the “high points, low points, hurdles, setbacks and milestones making up the tapestry of survivorship.”

Colanero started the project with the idea of creating a single portrait. But after finishing his first piece, “Ribbon in the Sky,” a collaboration between Colanero, model-survivor Cindy Papale and Hitchcock, he realized at once that a single image would not be enough. He began recruiting survivors from all over the United States, and The Breast Cancer Awareness Body Painting Project: A Fine Art & Photography Essay of Survivors was born.

“Warrior ” — Model Maria Alejandro Santaello
(Credit: pinterest.com)

Colanero’s designs are unique not just in his choice of subject matter, but in how he approaches the work. Much of art created around breast cancer survivorship, he explains, is geared towards “making me feel sorry for people” and “highlighting their brokenness.” But his experience in working with survivors, he says, has been far from sad or dark. “Everyone I was meeting were these amazingly resilient and colorful and wonderful people,” he says. “So I wanted to show….the positive after effects” of the disease and the spirit of gratitude with which so many survivors approach their lives.

One of Colanero’s most iconic designs is a portrait of Maria Alejandra Santaella, a martial artist and paddle boarder from Ft. Lauderdale, Florida. Titled “Warrior,” the photograph shows Santaella in whimsical “body armor,” standing with one hand clenched, ready to do battle with the cancer that so profoundly affected her life. “It tells two stories,” Santella says in a PBS interview. “One of how hard it can be and how difficult it can be, because you can see…that your body is not the same. But on the other hand you can tell that you are beautiful, too, and that…your life keeps going. It’s good…it’s OK.” 

Sadly, Santaella succumbed to her disease in November 2013.

To date, Colaneros has photographed over 50 breast cancer survivors, whose portraits are on display at his UNCOMMON gallery in Ft. Lauderdale. To learn more about his work and the brave survivors he has collaborated with during this ongoing project, watch the video below.