July 21 (UPI) -- The World Bodypainting Festival begins Thursday in Klagenfurt, Austria, bringing together hundreds of body painting artists and enthusiasts from around the globe. The three-day festival, which has been held at the Goethepark in Klagenfurt since 2017, features multiple competitions, stage shows and over 40 live bands. The "Bodypaint City" area of the festival also features a body painting and beauty EXPO, as well as multiple "adventure zones." Advertisement The event was founded by Austrian Alex Barendregt in 1997 as the European Bodypainting Festival. Barendregt said he became interested in the art form after seeing photos from the 1970s showing German model Veruschka von Lehndorff with her body covered in paint. He decided to create a festival after discovering there were no large-scale events in Europe dedicated to what was then a niche art form. "I think transformation was always something human, transformation of the body [and] decoration," Barendregt told National Geographic in 2018. "You can express really good feelings, colors, emotions in an art form that is also moving and screaming and dancing." The first two years of the festival, held in Seeboden, Austria, featured body painting showcases, and 1999 saw the inception of the first European Bodypainting Awards. Ensuing years saw the addition of showcases and awards for photography and fine art, as well as different categories of body painting including brush and sponge, airbrushing, team body painting, special effects makeup and installation art. Advertisement Barendregt launched the European Body Painting Association, a networking organization for body painting artists, in 2001. The group expanded into the World Bodypainting Association in 2004, the same year the festival was redubbed the World Bodypainting Festival. The festival moved to the city of Poertschach in 2011. Organizers wrote on the event's website that they decided to move away from Seeboden as a result of "politics and problems in the neighborhood." The festival moved again in 2017 to its current home in Klagenfurt. The festival was held virtually in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic, and 2021 saw a "hybrid" version held, with a scaled-down version of the live event being held in conjunction with virtual showcases and competitions. The 2022 version, the 25th anniversary of the first European Bodypainting Festival, features the return of the large-scale live event, with hundreds of artists from more than 50 countries expected to show off their skills and compete in amateur and professional categories. The festival, and others that followed in its wake, are credited with increasing the popularity of bodypainting as an art form. The practice is increasingly seen as a fine art by museums and galleries, and the practice became the subject of a reality TV series, Skin Wars, in 2014. Advertisement Barendregt said his ultimate goal is to build connections between body painting artists and the rest of the global art community. "I would now like to create this network, not only within the bodypainting industry, but with other artists and art institutions," Barendregt said. "My vision would be an Art Basel for body painting artists." 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July 21 (UPI) -- The World Bodypainting Festival begins Thursday in Klagenfurt, Austria, bringing together hundreds of body painting artists and enthusiasts from around the globe.

The three-day festival, which has been held at the Goethepark in Klagenfurt since 2017, features multiple competitions, stage shows and over 40 live bands. The "Bodypaint City" area of the festival also features a body painting and beauty EXPO, as well as multiple "adventure zones." Advertisement

The event was founded by Austrian Alex Barendregt in 1997 as the European Bodypainting Festival. Barendregt said he became interested in the art form after seeing photos from the 1970s showing German model Veruschka von Lehndorff with her body covered in paint. He decided to create a festival after discovering there were no large-scale events in Europe dedicated to what was then a niche art form.

"I think transformation was always something human, transformation of the body [and] decoration," Barendregt told National Geographic in 2018. "You can express really good feelings, colors, emotions in an art form that is also moving and screaming and dancing."

The first two years of the festival, held in Seeboden, Austria, featured body painting showcases, and 1999 saw the inception of the first European Bodypainting Awards. Ensuing years saw the addition of showcases and awards for photography and fine art, as well as different categories of body painting including brush and sponge, airbrushing, team body painting, special effects makeup and installation art. Advertisement

Barendregt launched the European Body Painting Association, a networking organization for body painting artists, in 2001. The group expanded into the World Bodypainting Association in 2004, the same year the festival was redubbed the World Bodypainting Festival.

The festival moved to the city of Poertschach in 2011. Organizers wrote on the event's website that they decided to move away from Seeboden as a result of "politics and problems in the neighborhood." The festival moved again in 2017 to its current home in Klagenfurt.

The festival was held virtually in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic, and 2021 saw a "hybrid" version held, with a scaled-down version of the live event being held in conjunction with virtual showcases and competitions.

The 2022 version, the 25th anniversary of the first European Bodypainting Festival, features the return of the large-scale live event, with hundreds of artists from more than 50 countries expected to show off their skills and compete in amateur and professional categories.

The festival, and others that followed in its wake, are credited with increasing the popularity of bodypainting as an art form. The practice is increasingly seen as a fine art by museums and galleries, and the practice became the subject of a reality TV series, Skin Wars, in 2014. Advertisement

Barendregt said his ultimate goal is to build connections between body painting artists and the rest of the global art community.

"I would now like to create this network, not only within the bodypainting industry, but with other artists and art institutions," Barendregt said. "My vision would be an Art Basel for body painting artists."