Conversations about Beauty
What is Beauty? And how portraits will look like if while shooting we talk about Beauty?
The sitters for my “Conversations about Beauty” series are all active in the creative field and, above all, they are real women, with wrinkles and scars – the latter mainly hidden in their souls.
My casting call was open to any gender and age, but I mainly received applications from women under 35. Nevertheless, I decided not to escape the stereotype that beauty belongs to young women, as this led to a priceless discovery – it’s precisely because they feel pressurised by society and social media about how they are supposed to look like, that young women are more open to talk about beauty.
This is a highly collaborative project. Before our portrait sessions, and sometimes even in the middle of them, we had in-depth conversations about the meaning of beauty, with the portraits being triggered/inspired by such interaction between us. Some of these women had body issues – which makes their contribution to the project even more relevant:
– “I don’t feel beautiful at all”;
– “I had years where I thought I was ugly – as this is what I was told in order to disempower me in a custody battle”;
– “It’s easier for everyone to see beauty in others rather than in ourselves”;
– “Beauty and happiness go together”;
– “I don’t need to be told that I am beautiful”.
I asked the sitters to wear an outfit that had a special meaning to them – an unforgettable holiday, the daily practice as dancer and so on.
Inspired by the depiction of women in painted portraiture, I painted a bespoke backdrop for each of the 12 women, matching their body, style, personality and sense of fashion. Being aware of the issue of the male gaze, I felt like setting the sitters against a painted backdrop would lead to less sexualised images.
All participants are naturally lit by the window light in my studio.
Once more, my heartfelt "thank you" goes to the 12 participants:
Ying Lan
Merel Van der Knoop
Aprine Tan
Zuzana Spacirova
Laura Ella
Pooja Vadhva
Winnie Arhin
Andrada Gheorghita
Katie McKenna
Giada Sassolino
Agata Olszewska
Natalie Ciufo Green