Battling Beautifully and Boldly
Photographer: Margo Ramirez
Exhibit Title: Battling Beautifully and Boldly
Location: United States
About the work:
I have worked in the beauty industry for over a decade and in my opinion the industry can be perceived as shallow and self-indulgent. It was not until one day that I watched my 79-year-old mother who is undergoing chemo, find the energy to put on her makeup despite all that she was going through. Feeling weak, ill and lethargic, I watched her as she carefully went through her makeup bag in search for that healthy woman she once was. It as at the moment that I no longer looked at makeup, nail polish or wigs as something vain and superficial but I saw as a tool, a sword, a super hero’s shield of empowerment. Both my mother and my cousin have been battling this disease and fighting to stay alive. These women before their illness relished in their femininity and embraced all the rituals that made them feel like beautiful women.
Battling Beautifully and Boldly is a collection of images that documents specific moments of how they find their hope and strength by starting their day with their beauty routine. The images show how they found empowerment and a will to get through their day by applying their make-up, placing their wigs and painting their nails giving a new meaning to the vanity that surrounds these rituals. A makeup bag full of hope and a hairbrush with remnants of who they once were and hope to be once again, is the power that drives them to get through their day one day at a time.
(Since the making of these images my cousin lost her battle and has passed on to become a beautiful angel)
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