Concept of Beauty

Concept of Beauty (2003) is a series exploring the desire to transform oneself in accordance to western beauty standards and implications that influence our self-perceptions.

 

Being of South Asian descent, Qureshi has been overly exposed to restrictive ideologies. She, like many others, grew to resent the values that she had been conditioned to prioritize. The desire to be fair-skinned and delicate-featured is reinforced heavily by fashion and cosmetic industries that rely on these standards to sell their products.

This series of work responds to these industries’ definitions of beauty with a sort of re-appropriation of these standards by overlaying exoskeletal facial features onto famous artworks.

 

Medium: Pen and gold acrylic ink on watercolour paper.