One to Watch

Self Reflecting with Fares Micue

Fares Micue uses photography as an outlet to express her dreams, emotions, and fantasies. As the main protagonist in her works, Micue transforms herself in order to tell unique stories that are open to interpretation. The self-taught artist is based in Spain and regularly participates in photography competitions, receiving honorable mentions in Prix de la Photographique Paris in 2018 and 2019, and has had her work appear on the cover of Shades of Grey magazine in 2018

1. Tell us about who you are and what you do. What’s your background?

I am a self-taught, conceptual photographer from Spain. I mainly focus on portraiture, using myself as the main subject of my images.

2. What does your work aim to say? What are the major themes you pursue in your work?

I aim to create emotions and share stories with my photographs. I want to make the viewer dream, think, and feel different emotions with my images by experimenting with feelings such as loneliness, sadness, hope, love, or desperation, and always with a melancholic and romantic touch. I also enjoy creating images from popular sayings like in my image, ‘If Life Gives You Lemons’ where I did a literal recreation of the saying using the lemons I had available to create a painterly image.

3. Can you walk us through your process for creating work from beginning to end?

To begin the process of creating an image I need to go location scouting in case I want to shoot outdoors. In order to have a general idea of what I have available to create the image I have in mind, I also need to know how much post-processing in Photoshop I am going to need in order to achieve my desired image. I always try to get as much on camera as possible. I have a sketchbook where I kind of draw how I want the final image to look, along with the colors, the meaning of the image, and the title, and then I am ready to shoot. After the photo shoot is done, I move onto editing, my favorite part, where the image actually becomes what I envisioned in my mind.

4. Who are your biggest influences and why?

I would say that human beings and life, in general, are my biggest influences. I love to observe and analyze human nature and how we react to feelings and situations, as well as how we interact with each other and with the environment around us. Most of the time I prefer to search for inspiration inside (feelings, thoughts or reflections) rather than outside.

5. Why art?

I cannot conceive life without art — I enjoy art in every expression possible. For me art is freedom, it is where I can be myself with no restrictions, where I can be vulnerable and become stronger at the same time. Art is a universal language, the language of the soul.