The Essence of Life 08

From the Collection “The Essence of Life”

Flowers have their own sex appeal. For years, in the art of photography and painting, flowers have functioned as an instrument of sexual metaphor.

Maybe there is no artist who has developed eroticism with flowers as Georgia O’Keeffe has done, one of my great inspirations for this project. Her abstract representations of flowers and pistils, on a large scale, transform petals and leaves into formalist experiments that flow. Using the formalist movement as a reference, I played with the shapes, lines and colors while exploring the sensuality of an innocent flower. That’s right, innocent.

As you know, flowers are complex symbols. Certainly they are not always provocative. Lily, for example, is associated with the Virgin Mary. It symbolizes purity and refined beauty. The true pure innocence of all times. And yet, it reproduces sexually. Oh, the irony!

This project goes beyond the issue itself. First of all, I have been described as a “delicate” person. This project describes who I am, while I let a flower become my alter ego, I mean, a true projection of myself.

All this started with the desire to leave my comfort zone. I needed to see myself. And that’s why I decided to be the model of my own project. I needed to make peace with my faults and feel comfortable in my own skin. And, maybe, see what others see in me, that refined beauty of a lily.

At the end of this project I was able to notice the incredible similarity that exists between flowers and people. Like them, we are born, we grow and there will come a point where a flower shows its petals, we bloom.

I think that the beauty of a person, as in a flower, cannot be distinguished with the naked eye, we must wait until we are ready to show ourselves and it is at that moment that we can achieve love as we are, appreciating the essence of our being.

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THE ESSENCE OF LIFE