beauty spot

Just as stars create patterns in the night sky, the beauty spots create patterns on our canvas of existence. 

Using the skin as the subject, this series explores how small bodily marks are repeatedly loaded with meaning across cultures and historical periods. The body is never just a physical form, but a surface where belief, desire, and systems of interpretation converge.

Across cultures, moles have rarely been understood as accidental. In Ancient Greece and Rome, they were read as omens sent by the gods, capable of signaling fortune or misfortune. In Medieval Europe, moles were often viewed with suspicion, interpreted as signs of moral character or even diabolical influence. By the 17th and 18th centuries, this fear shifted into performance: artificial beauty spots, known as mouches, were deliberately applied, their placement functioning as a coded social language of flirtation, status, and power.

Together, these readings show a persistent human impulse to assign meaning to the body. Skin becomes an archive of belief and projection, shaped by cultural and social norms that define how bodies are valued, feared, and desired.

By photographing skin alongside fragments of landscape, they are placed on the same visual plane. Seen closely, skin and earth share a language of impermanence, memory, and meaning.