Part of Bea’s appeal stems from her versatility – the artist can craft anything from elaborate, painted looks to a clean canvas of glowing skin and lightly tinted lips. Her masterful manipulation of texture and colour converges in a world where powdery rainbow pigments meet glossy creams and matte finishes. “I get really excited over how products perform,” Bea explains. “If I find one with a cool texture, I’m sold.” But perhaps the most notable thing about her work is the impact she’s created by colouring outside of the lines while instilling a powerful, feminine togetherness and sense of individuality.
Most recently for the Louise Lyngh Bjerregaard AW22 prêt-a-porter in Paris, Sweet created variations of the same grunge look: a sexy, heavy eye in black and brown hues with brown outlined lips and thick lashings of mascara and khôl. Each look was tweaked ever so slightly to suit each model’s unique skin tones and face shapes. “It created a unity between faces while accepting and adoring all of their diversity and difference”.
This celebration of uniqueness is underpinned in every look Bea creates: skin is touched up but never concealed, freckles and beauty marks shine through, and colours and lines complement but never clash with skin tone and face shapes. Bea has championed this unfiltered realness and raw aesthetic across her platform, which is then amplified with her intentional use of colour and pigment. Using the face as a canvas, lids could be saturated with colour or the entire face may be awash in a metallic silver as she bridges the gap between makeup and art – “I think it’s one and the same”, she adds.
Creating impactful looks and crafting works of art needn’t always be about making a bold statement with extravagant colour – it’s about intention and tailoring the looks you make to each individual face you’re working with. “I really love transforming people”, explains Bea. “It doesn’t mean it has to be big”. It could be a fluttery pink lash on a completely untouched base, a splash of colour on the inner corner or a glimmer of iridescent purple highlight for an otherworldly, futuristic glow.
Across all of Bea’s work, enhancing an individual’s unique beauty through her unconventional art is what cements her as a truly revolutionary creator that represents the best of what beauty has to offer: creating a sense of togetherness whilst also highlighting individuality and diversity. “I think if you’re able to say that in life then that’s a very beautiful thing.”
Editor
Carina FischerCredit
Lead image: courtesy Bea Sweet
