Your Majesty the Queen is a series that came up to life after two years of grief due the loss of my mother to cancer.
I was very close to her specially during the time of the illness up to the point of becoming her mother. When she left I felt devastated. Darkness and deep pain wouldn´t let me see the light and joy of life for a long period.
Somehow during those two years I buried my camera with her. Everything seemed to me already said, shown, portrayed. I felt as if numbness was growing in me as a big monster that was shadowing my light.
Time went by and the need of survival and coming back to life arose little by little. At an exhibition I went in Paris about Cleopatra, I felt the connection with the essence and the beauty of a portrait. I thought how each painter had imagined her and then created their own version of this magnificent empress. And then I felt the connection with her story and power. I could feel again; I could feel more than extreme sadness. Something very important and deep was moving within me.
I started to dig into different leaders’ lives through history, I could identify with so many aspects and fights these warriors had to make. I decided I had to portray them. Why leaders? Why Your Majesty the Queen? Well, just because a governor has to be standing no matter what. Too many decisions depend on him/her. There is an implication of presence in a ruler’s life. That is what I needed, to be present again. I had to go through them and bring my models along. It was a profound, personal and intense work. So every photograph I made, choosing about twenty-five female leaders was a tribute to my mother, and a healing to myself. I created more than a hundred images that led me to a self-confrontation and acceptance of what I was going through.
It is obvious to me that emotions are essential in a portrait. Mine, the model’s and the public’s. It is what I would call, the mirror effect: I see me in you, you see yourself back in me and the public sees him or herself in the image. Pain is a tremendous master. [Official Website]
