Beautiful Woman

This body of work focuses on an exploration of the female body and the discomforts imposed by modern femininity. I chose to create self-portrait photographs using materials that traditionally represent beauty, to demonstrate how females conform to societal pressures that beauty must be portrayed in specific ways, regardless of the physical pain. I closely worked with parts of the body I perceive women focusing on decorating in order to look and feel beautiful.

The photographs are made with soft studio lighting as a display of superficiality, very similar to what is found in beauty advertisements. The materials used in each photograph consist of different fabrics types; crystals beads and flowers that are carefully manipulated into shapes incorporating a dramatic effect just to illustrate the painful details of the process that one can call “attractiveness.” Color is fundamental to this body of work since I manipulated the colors with pink tones to emphasize the presence of the female character.

Beautiful Woman is a representation of the way I feel to be a woman and the pressure to feel feminine. The work is inspired by a recollection of memories that impacted me throughout my life and show me how to appreciate and celebrate womanhood. I want to capture the effort and time many women dedicate to this idea of the ideal beauty because life is heavily based on appearance. Ultimately I want the viewers, especially women, to feel encouraged and to embrace love of their bodies.