Breasts. Thighs. Tongues. All sliding into each other, these lips and hips and groping fingers, this onslaught of bodies arching toward orgasm or penetration or salvation. Robert Crumb would be proud. Norman Lindsay would be shocked.

In black-and-white, Kurt Koeppl draws nudes, and lots of them. "it's a simple reflection of my state of mind," Kurt says. "And if that means people think I'm weird or strange or different, I consider that a compliment." His wife nods: "Even when he does landscapes or local beach scenes he manages to sneak in a boob or a bottom somewhere."

There's nothing contrived or deliberate about it. Hand Kurt some charcoal and paper (a big piece, preferably, at least one metre tall and one metre wide) and turn up the stereo (Marilyn Manson, preferably, or The Cure or Pink Floyd or Pavarotti) and off he goes. "It just happens," he says. "You sit in front of a blank white paper and it flows or it doesn't."

Born in Munich, Germany, during the war, Kurt became a photo engraver and studied graphic design at the PRANCK Graphics School. He came to Sydney in 1964 with an appetite for adventure. For three years he worked as a fox-skin buyer in the outback. More recently, after starting his own graphic design business, Kurt drew his first work, The Surrogate.

"The charcoal seemed to allow me to make a statement with much more intensity. You can't disguise mistakes and dazzle the viewer with colour. To create visual interest in black and white the drawing has to be extraordinarily powerful. The composition has to bring the onlooker in."

The result combines the rainy day mood of black-and-white photography with the surreal menace of an oversexed Salvador Dali. Rich with symbols, Kurt's art explores religion, emotions and, of course, eroticism.

"People are unsure of hanging something erotic in their homes. 'What if my mother-in-law sees it?' But people should challenge the status quo."



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OPENING NIGHT PHOTOS