ALIQUE

VOGUE germany

A study of self

07.2020

Photography, artwork and text by Alique

There is this quote by the poet Victor Hugo:
‘To love beauty is to see light.’
It is a quote I live by, I think it sums up everything.
It is your choice, isn’t it? Where, when and how you see beauty around you.

It is delicate for sure. To love and to see, is a gracious process.
The understanding you have of anything and any physical appearance, including your own.

And then there is time, making it impossible to hold on to.
How beauty travels through time. Every stage is meaningful and essential. There is so much beauty in decay. The circle of life.
To me the magic of life, and love.

As a woman and as an artist, female beauty and empowerment is always a guiding force. When I work, my vision of beauty is driving me. The tracing of lines on the canvas, the features of a face or body showing in the frame. No texture nor detail to escape or be misplaced. I love creating a new magical world within the frame. Finding beauty is clearly an obsessive element in my work.

But there is so much more to it for me, to beauty. And it is a very vulnerable and intimate process. To see her is to let her see me, my true meaning and how I see her. It is about making a connection, an agreement in trust and empowerment, to be able to share a unique moment. Without it, the picture will not matter. There is no story to share. Beauty is communication.

The sharing, the exchange, the reflection is the real beauty. The not knowing, beyond the appearance, it is energy. It is personal and not tangible, and so, there is no truth.
We all have our own truth, our own beauty.

How I see women, I am convinced that I see their beauty and feel their essence, that I know them without meeting them….Where does this come from? Is it true? Is it real?
Is it because I am a woman too? I can relate to their manners, reflect and connect with their insecurities and strength…...
you can ask yourself, is it their beauty or my own that I see?

How do I see myself? While working on this project, I am suddenly questioning… What is my beauty exactly? I realize that I have never pointed the camera at myself the way I point it at the women I photograph. It is such a great thing to empower others with my work, that I forgot about myself. Perhaps it became a substitute to myself? I love all the disarray and details in nature, every imperfection of the ones I love most, but am I afraid to see my own?
Can I mirror this process and reflection I apply to seeing other women, back upon myself? Can I find in myself what I envision to see in them? Can I ask of myself what I so bluntly ask from them? Can I self-reflect, look at my own face and body and be okay with that? Can I be as vulnerable? Can I create art with myself? Can I see myself truly? Can I see and empower my own real beauty, and my world of beauty?

Do I dare share it with you? With this document of work, I am sharing bits of this process as I invite you to wonder along, and reflect, on what beauty can behold.