Blush
KUBIKULO - Project Room
Oporto, Portugal
https://www.kubikgallery.com/kubikulo.html

Tapestry and ceramics
2020
© Rita Castro



“If she be made of white and red, Her faults will ne'er be known, For blushing cheeks by faults are bred, And fears by pale white shown”

William Shakespeare, Love’s Labour’s Lost, Act I, Scene 2, 1597



Blush finds a political meaning in make-up pigment, in the sense that engages in a symbolic and ritualistic operation. Being in Western contexts (in the individual sphere, in theatre…) as well as in non-western contexts (body paintings in indigenous cultures), make-up is the expression of a fantasy, of a disguise, of an artifice, of a fake action. Is within this “cosmetic” given by the pigment that an identity “mask” is built.