Makeup Activism According to @makeupbrutalism

Makeup activist Eszter Magyar reveals what’s behind @makeupbrutalism and the inspiration
for her work with Gucci Beauty.

You define yourself as makeup activist, what does this mean to you?
Makeup is so much more than just simple paint on the skin. It is one of the oldest forms of art, communication, coding/decoding, social pressure, self expression etc. It has so many layers, my goal is to make people aware of that. We live in the age of tutorials, everybody asking how - never why - and I try to inspire people to question everything before agreeing on anything. There are so many stigmas and discomfort around beauty and I believe we can heal that with honesty and creativity. It would be important to “normalise normal” to teach people how to accept themselves, this is what I'm trying to do as a makeup activist, even if it’s not about makeup anymore but human aesthetics.

What’s the story behind @makeupbrutalism?
Profession wise I'm a makeup artist with 10 years of experience but it became clear in the early stages that beauty bores me, that I prefer character over perfection. This was the drive which led me to experiment with different shapes and textures—to add another layer to my work, to make it more exciting for me and for everybody else—this is how makeupbrutalism was born. Today if you would ask I would say makeupbrutalism is more about concepts than anything else and I really like it that way. It was an ars poetica of a makeup artist but it turned out as the identity of a conceptual creator. A weird mixture of conceptualism, makeup, photography, art and activism which makes people uncomfortable. The interesting part is, as it’s changes, there are always new purposes and goals on the horizon. Now these are protecting artistic freedom in the online space, to educate or my dream: leading makeupbrutalism to the offline space in forms of an exhibiton and a book.

What inspired you to create these Gucci Beauty looks?
A slogan popped into my mind: “it doesn't have to be perfect, this will make it inimitable.” It contains social criticism mixed with the craving of being special at the same time. I started with the lip looks and the main goal was to create desirable aesthetics without being fully “finished”, without a pressure of perfection so to say. I really enjoy creating with destroying - so I removed parts with different techniques and tools, turned the looks inside out to have the end results. With the eyes it was quite the opposite, I tried to add some extra in the form of beads, to create a smoky eyeliner which is both and none of that at the same time, but always tried to keep it “real” with the little details.