Centerfold
Portrait of Burt Reynolds on Sheet Music
First created for my 2022 Debut Art Show at Aby’s in Rapid City, SD, later reworked for Gallery Eroto in Seattle, WA, Centerfold carries a lot of history, humor, and cultural weight for me, as well as a deeply personal connection to my roots as an artist.
The Canvas
I Chose to paint on the sheet music for J. Geils Band’s Centerfold, not just because the title reads literally, but because the song itself fixates on judging a woman once she becomes sexually visible. I've always found the song to be unsettling, albeit catchy.
The Image
Instead of a woman being displayed as the song suggests, i chose to portray Burt Reynolds. A man widely considered to be the epitome of masculinity, posing for consumption.
Combining Song with Imagery
Pairing lyrics like "She was pure like snowflakes; no one could ever stain" with a literal ink stain in the shape of most iconic male centerfold in American media became a way for me to flip the script.
The three pages of music are the exact same size as the original Cosmopolitan centerfold, folds and all. I know this because I used the actual magazine my grandmother kept tucked away for more than forty years.
In 2020 she quietly handed it down to me, knowing my love for art that plays with boundaries, bodies, and the culture around them. The magazine was included in the box of sheet music that started my art career.
My Personal Connection & Intention
This piece feels like it has carried a lineage, not just of the image itself, but of how women have viewed, kept, shared, and interpreted erotic media over generations.
What fascinates me is how much the meaning of Reynolds’ image has shifted. In 1972, his centerfold caused a cultural shockwave. It challenged who was allowed to be sexualized, who was allowed to look, what masculinity could look like without aggression, and what it would look like designed for the female gaze, and not for the approval of other men.
Over time, though, Burt's Centerfold became something people laughed at. I see this as roof of how unstable our definitions of “manhood” really are. The same symbols that were once seen as confident and sexy are now often treated as camp.
The sexual desire once stirred up in a fury in 1979, now on a novelty items such as t-shirts, pencil bags, tote bags, and even a novelty coffee mug that sits in my cupboard with the word “Good Morning Reta” on it. (also belonged to my grandma)
For me, this painting is about that tension. It’s about the contrast between a song that objectifies a woman and an image that both threatened and transformed masculinity by letting a man be the one on display.
It’s about the double standards around nudity and value. A statement about how the female body is endlessly sexualized, while the male body becomes a joke the moment it’s vulnerable. And it’s about remembering that Reynolds didn’t regret the centerfold at all; he simply wasn’t prepared for the onslaught of attention. That part of the story gets misremembered, and I think that matters. Especially posthumously. While social media users scan a headline, skip the article, and quickly comment to decry the sharing of the centerfold per "his wishes".
Something that doesn't happen for women.
This piece is important to me not just because of the pop-culture iconography (and discography), but because it sits at the intersection of nostalgia, gender, evolving erotic humor, and cultural critique.
I’m grateful to currently be sharing it in a space that understands masculinity as something worth questioning, celebrating, and examining from all sides.
I invite viewers to explore their memories of masculinity in the media.
The song: Masculinity exhibited by consumption
The image: Masculinity exhibited for consumption.
Which concept makes you more comfortable?
Which one feels silly?
Which one is more desirable?
And why?
Original Painting purchase inquiries contact - Gallery Erato – Pan-Eros Foundation
Prints available
in the SEAF Store May 1st-3rd 2026
Home - Seattle Erotic Art Festival
In my online shop - Coming Soon
