Introduction and Self-Guided Exploration

I’ve been working with a lot of this sort of lighting in my illustrations and I spent way too long looking through pictures of neon lights. I honestly just grabbed my laptop and pulled up a picture of “magenta” and crawled into my closet. I also grabbed a tutu I wore for a school spirit thing once. I wanted to use the “gender colors” pink and blue but in a unified way.

The general inspiration for my portraits derived from the concept that gender is nothing more than a social construct, which impedes ya from expressing ourselves externally. I chose to photograph each half of my face portraying the stereotypical visuals of what binary genders are socially accepted to wear (long hair, makeup, short-length hair, facial hair, etc). However, each side is adorned by a hint of makeup (lipstick, blush, and eyeliner) seeing as makeup isn’t reserved for one group, rather for whoever desires to wear it. Lastly, regarding the curtains, these personas are hiding themselves away from the cruel judgemental outside seeing as they’re afraid of being criticized for not abiding by the implications of their “designated” gender.

When it comes to gender I believe that no matter what gender you are you can wear makeup ( that’s why I put a bit of eyeshadow and highlighter on) . Also I chose different lightings for the first one to show how there’s more than just one persona and there‘s more beyond it. The last one is more of to show a closer version on how structure doesn’t matter. Half faces represent how there’s a physical but also emotional or mental difference while the whole face represents how we are seen in society but you can do or wear anything you would like.

In society today, there are so many stereotypes behind every action you do, even the simple act of shaving. I wanted to show how we put all gender constructs around tasks that don't need to be there. I also wanted to play around with the shadows of the bathroom and the reflections of the light on the white tile. I also wanted to capture the photo of my mom looking through the mirror because I feel like you are the most vulnerable when you are one letting someone photograph you but also when you are studying your face.

I got this idea when I heard that we have to push the boundaries of gender. There’s a stigma around men wearing makeup so i wanted to show that makeup doesn’t have a gender.

I picked these pictures because of how a girl can both pull off a feminine and/ a masculine look. It shows that gender shouldn’t determine if you want to be feminine/masculine or not.