The vastness of red26 Images
Whether it’s the glaring flash of a gaudy emergency light, the bleeding stain of spilled wine on a white shirt, or the lipstick left on a cheek by a lover, the colour red can evoke a range of emotions. While colour psychology for most is straightforward: blue is melancholy, green is envy, there’s little more paradoxical than the colour red. The vastness of red’s associations is what inspires a new beauty shoot by photographer Ana Marti and make-up artist Simone Gammino.
Through these images, the pair present a visual narration of the human experience. Using crimson beauty looks, the story bounces between altering states: the evanescent and the carnal, the visceral and the spiritual. Within the shoot, the make-up is smeared with intention, where redness blots across lips and faces, mirroring the way ink bleeds into paper or blood disperses in water. Marti and Gammino hope to communicate the ever-changing cycle of emotions that make up the human experience, all through the use of a singular colour.
What was the intention of using smeared and smudged make-up looks in the shoot?
Simone Gammino: The intention is to evoke something alive and organic, in continuous change, coming from the body and spirit of the subject. The fluctuating alternation of emotions, as well as the flow of tears or blood in the veins, are all human concepts in constant transformation and movement. Thus, the idea is to visually represent a human trace, gently mutable, between the physical and the spiritual dimension.
What other beauty references or influences did you draw upon?
Ana Marti: We started from references based on paintings, flowers and objects… The references had in common the focus on the colour red. Also, the images were strong but at the same time were very diffuse.
Simone Gammino: My main inspirations for this project were painters I particularly love, especially Francis Bacon, Marlene Dumas, and Mark Rothko. It is also a continuation, in the form of make-up, of a personal painting project I began more than ten years ago.
How was colour used within the images?
Ana Marti: Red is the colour that calls the attention on the shoot. It’s the focal point and has the intensity and the weight. The other colours play around. Through wide exposure and lost focus, we found other colours and textures that help us to find a more spiritual beauty.
Simone Gammino: Colour is used minimally: only a few essential tones, in the iconic combination of red, white and black. Red is definitely the true protagonist of the story, depicted through various styles of lines, techniques and textures. Delicate watercolour strokes form floral patterns that alternate with geometric elements and strict airbrushed gradients, blending liquid textures with more classic beauty elements.
What did you hope to communicate through this shoot overall?
Ana Marti: For me, the main point is that the person who sees the image can feel something. That they do not remain flat but transmit emotions. Calm, hope and dream, but also carnal and violence, are the most significant ones for me on this shoot. Also, we were interested in transmitting that pictorialism sensation of the initial references.
Simone Gammino: In short, the intention was to communicate shifting and ever-changing emotions through the use of a single colour. An imprint, an evanescent trace left by human feeling.
Photography by Ana Marti, make-up by Simone Gammino, casting by Sebastien Hernandez, with Zofia Meyer signed at @whynotmodels and J MOON signed at @thelabmodels.
