18 September- 17 November 2009

Beauty of the Barrio
Ricardo Cases

Much is said of the canon of beauty, of its standards, and this talk is in reality of an offical style, unique with references imposed by magazines.

But ultimately beauty is a virtue that comes from birth. You have it or you don´t and today when someone tries to transform themselves by going under the knife, they risk becoming a freak of design.
One of the people I painted told me “beauty is self esteem. It´s to see yourself as beautiful, no one else.” Accepting therefore that there is no aesthetic judgment more valid than another, in "Beauty of the Barrio" I dispense of my prejudices and I look for the beauty from a criteria alien to mine. I forget my assumptions, determined by the commercial filters of the advertising machine, and try to arrive at the interior of the person, inviting her to be beautiful, to show her own idea of beauty: the beauty that wants to project onto its environment, in its neighbourhood. The beauty we want to see reflected in the mirrors of our homes.