BELLA CARDIM

Beauty Lies examines how contemporary beauty standards are constructed, internalized, and sustained through technology and repetition. Conceived as a series of self-portraits, the work confronts the authority of the image and questions how value, legitimacy, and acceptance are assigned to bodies through visual representation.

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The title draws from the phrase “beauty lies in the eye of the beholder,” one of my long-held beliefs. In English, the verb lies carries a double meaning: it suggests that beauty resides in the gaze, but it also implies deception. This linguistic tension anchors the project, allowing the word lies to operate both as presence and falsehood.

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The series consists of 75 self-portraits produced from personal photographs, edited through an app that simulates so-called ideal features. The work references the visual language of automated ID and passport-style photographs, images designed to classify, standardize, and define how we are officially seen. From this framework, Beauty Lies confronts how we appear with and without filters, and how these systems shape self-perception and social value.

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As digital images increasingly replace physical presence, the mediated body becomes a dominant reference. The work reflects on how repeated, standardized representations influence desire, comparison, and self-worth.

Rather than rejecting beauty, Beauty Lies creates a moment of confrontation and pause, inviting the viewer to question when an image reveals, and when it quietly begins to lie.