to portray womanhood

• 12/52 •

• recreate a painting •

 

For this challenge, I chose a painter who wasn't born in Porto but who lived here for most of hear life; her work fills the walls of one of my favorite museums (Museu Nacional Soares dos Reis), and I've lived with this specific painting since I was a teenager. The painter is Aurélia de Souza, and the work is 'self-portrait'.

 

I find it pretty self explanatory, pun intended. My first impulse, when I started to conceptualize the week's photo, was to go for my bad boy Caravaggio, and the chiaroscuro that I'm so ridiculously obsessed with. But the more I thought, the more I leaned towards choosing a self-portrait artist. Wouldn't it be wonderfully meta?

 

I joked around with Frida Kahlo, my favorite self-portrait artist, and then with the likes of Helena Almeida and even with Velásquez and the sly appearances behind canvases, or in forgotten reflections.

 

But the more I worked on this, the more I kept coming back to Aurélia. Aurélia, who filled my high school painting fantasies, for whom I wrote fanfiction when I was 16, whose sister, also an unbelievable painter, I idolized. So I picked her. And here's the result

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[ somos seis, amigas e fotógrafas, a fazer um '52 semanas' em conjunto. publicaremos semanalmente nas nossas redes sociais, e podem seguir-nos através da hashtag #52sisterhood. caso se queiram juntar a nós, podem usar a hashtag #52sisterhoodchallenge! contamos convosco desse lado, nesta aventura! vamos lá!

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there’s six of us, friends and photographers, doing a '52 weeks’ project together. we’ll publish every week, and you can keep up with us through the hashtag #52sisterhood. If you’d like to join us, you can use the #52sisterhoodchallenge! we’re counting on you to join us on this journey! come along! ]

Done