Let's be beautiful together

Welcome to Hot Girls Like Art. Your weekly studio visit to your favorite Artist.

Every week I share the research, tools, and musings that keep me inspired and creative. If you’re new here, welcome to the team, we’re making art cool again.

This week we’re looking at Beauty and our relationship to ourselves.

Who decided what beauty is?

Everyone has the right to feel beautiful, the trick is finding the way to see it.

Vogue Mirrors

Over the last few weeks, I’ve been working on these Stainless Steel Mirror Installations, normally when I create installations I look for a physical interaction or some way that people can directly affect the work, I noticed recently people like taking pictures next to them way more than writing on them. So I thought I’d see how far I could take that experience, these are the first iterations.

A good sign for me is when I get messages of gratitude, and I’ve been overwhelmed by everyone who’s emailed or DM’s me in the last few weeks. Not everything I create pleases everyone, and I normally like it when there’s a small group of annoyed people, but these seem to be working well.

How we perceive ourselves and the love we allow ourselves to receive is a battle we all face, however, I’m starting to learn how different that is for all of us. Some of my wealthiest friends are the most insecure about their finances, and my friends who act and model, have the most difficult relationship with their figure and presentation.

It’s partly to do with seeing how deep the rabbit hole goes at the top end of a, and partly that our world has a lot of products, businesses and cultures that prey on our insecurities.

Brandy Melville

I was sitting at dinner with a few friends last month and I mentioned Brandy Melville, I walk past it on the way to my studio every day and I noticed that there’s something unusual about the shop window. My friends explained how they control who wears their clothes by making limited sizes. They control who gets to be beautiful.

The modern world does that, it creates something of value and controls who is allowed to hold it, maybe art does the same thing, I’m not sure. I wanted to see if I could offer up a different experience with the Vogue Installation, that’s why it went up next to Brandy Melville. I wanted to offer a different perspective on beauty, maybe something more open and accepting.

What is beauty?

We all have our own way of looking at beauty, but here’s mine.

Beauty is truth

When I look at a Diamond, it shines. When I look deeper it is clear. Further still it is strong. When I look at its core, its structure is consistent, all the way through. The carbon atoms create the same shape and perfection is achieved. But when I look at a volcano erupting, I feel the same thing… beauty.

I think it can be easy to look at a diamond and say its beauty is in the shimmer and size, but turn the lights off and it’s just a rock. And when we look at a volcano, we talk about power and colour, but if you’re too close, it’s only pain. I think these surface observations are the mistake. I think beauty is when we see something showing you exactly what it is in a light that lets you see it at its best.

Beauty is truth

I’ve been interviewing people about love for just over two years. Something that seems to come up frequently is that we find love in places that let us express a side of ourselves that makes us feel seen.

When those aspects that are seen are surface-level, we still have to deal with our inner insecurities. When those aspects that are seen, and accepted, are so core to our being that we are scared to show them, we feel safe. Safe that our darkest parts are free to be loved, safe that we are beautiful to our core.

When that feeling of acceptance is at its strongest, we grow. We learn to see the beauty of our darkness, we learn that all parts of us, when managed and loved can help us. But..

When I look in the mirror, why is it so difficult to see beauty?

We all have a unique relationship to ourselves and our reflection. Despite mirrors providing a technically accurate representation of our aesthetic form, they sometimes don’t capture the beauty that lies under the surface, leaving us with a 2-D image that is easy to critique.

Part of the difficulty is that our brains are trained to look for threats and have a strong bias toward negativity. When we look at ourselves, we often look for the ways we could be “better”. Combining this natural bias with social media, advertising and socially prescribed standards for beauty can make it difficult for us to see the unique ways everything is beautiful.

What is better?

As we consume information and images, our subconscious calculates its value standards for beauty. The only way to control this and improve is through understanding what we consume and making our own decisions.

Last week I spent two days collecting purple items and photos around London, I’m a little intense when I do these things so by the end of the weekend my mind was a little overwhelmed. But my mind could now see new subtlety in the variations of purple and my eyes could find it everywhere. I began to see the beauty in the variations and sources, and as I looked at it more, I began to appreciate the nuance and uniqueness of each hue. I wanted to fall in love with the colour, so I could understand how to present it in my work.

We can do the same thing with our mind and beauty as I did with my eyes and purple. We can learn to love what we see, and from there learn how to let it grow healthily. When we understand and control our minds, the thoughts we want follow.

The brain adapts to repetition and intensity. over the coming weeks, I’ll share some of the ways I’ve been using this insight to help me improve this relationship with myself. My friends and the artists I work with seem to like them, maybe you will too.

Seeing Beauty

When I see beautiful people, I’m rarely focused on the objective side of their beauty, I’m normally more astonished by their relationship to it and the confidence they have in themselves. When I’m in a relationship and I feel love, it is generally because I’m able to be myself and know I’m going to feel safe.

My male and female friends don’t think about beauty in the same way, but they all teach me different things that help me see beauty in a way that helps me. Some of them help me see the beauty of aesthetics and grace, and others teach me the beauty of hard work and sacrifice. The more I’m able to see the beauty in different things, the easier it is for me to find it in myself.

Go Deeper

Here are some articles, shows, and links to things I’ve been consuming while working this week.

🎨  Ana Karkar at Almine Rech - Her second solo show, it’s a temple of eroticism and a great experience. Good for a date, great with a friend.

🎥 Perfect Days by Wim Wenders - Follows the life of a reflective and content Tokyo toilet cleaner. Beautiful, might make your soul want to cry.

📷 Nan Goldin at Gagosian - If you haven’t met Nan’s work yet, she will change your life. If you have, this is a wonderful series from 1970.

Free Vogue Mirror, If England win…

I don’t care about football, but I’m guessing someone here does.

I have one mirror left from the last release.

Head to this link and pick it up.

If Spain win, you get a First-edition Vogue Mirror.
If England win I’ll refund you 100% and you’ll get a First-edition Vogue Mirror for free.

The first edition will be shipping at the end of the week, thanks to everyone who bought one - I’m looking forward to seeing where you put them up.

If you want it click here.