‘So much beauty’

To celebrate the long and solid relationship between SM Beauty and the country’s established and new beauty experts, SM Beauty Glam Sessions was recently held at SM Makati.

Emceed by Bianca Valerio and beauty queen Shamcey Supsup-Lee, the event saw over 200 of the best makeup artists in the Philippines, including some of the respected names in the industry like Fanny Serrano, Bambbi Fuentes, Jesi Mendez, Jigs Mayuga and Jing Monis.

Also seen at the event were TV personalities Alexa Ilacad, Sarah Carlos, Phoemela Baranda and former beauty queens Karla Henry, Hannah Ruth Sison and Kris Janson.

During the event, each makeup artist received an SM Beauty Pro Card, which entitles the bearer to discounts and perks from the store. Pro Card holders also get first dibs on new collections and exclusive invite to events. The SM Store Beauty Section is the first and only retailer to offer such a privilege to these professional artists.

Watsons group marketing manager Sharon Presbitero-Decapia said, “Makeup artists know where to go when they need something for their clients and that’s The SM Store Beauty Section. It is the biggest beauty store in the country that offers ‘So Much Beauty’ with the widest range of cosmetics and fragrance products.” The flagship store in SM Makati spans almost 2,500 sq. m., housing almost 200 of the most esteemed local and global beauty brands.

The Cosmetics and Skin sections are aglow with brands like Dior, MAC, Clinique, Aveda, Kiehl’s and Glamglow. Its luxury fragrance lineup includes Prada, Nest, Lalique, Atelier Colognes, Thierry Mugler, Guerlain and Jean Patou. SM Beauty also carries brands like BYS, Happy Skin, Pixi, Ofra, K-Palette, Nyx, The Body Shop and more.

Part of the event was a mermaid-themed on-the-spot makeover session for the young artists. All competitors were given one hour to transform their models and give them their interpretation of the “Mermaid look.” Muriel Jada Nubla bested Nap Candelaria and Zidjan Floro with her Avante Fall/Winter look for her model Alla Alla and won P15,000 worth of products from BYS Cosmetics.

The SM Beauty Glam Session was co-presented by BYS Cosmetics. Other brand sponsors included LA Girl, Max Factor, CoverGirl, Maybelline, NYX, Features & Shades, Happy Skin, Burt’s Bees, Hask, Real Techniques, Eco Tools, Watsons, Purederm and Miine. The event was also presented by Guerlain, Elizabeth Arden and Shiseido.

(Visit www.facebook.com/smbeautyph and @smbeautyph on Instagram.)

Nunzio Paci with Marga and Milo Vasquez.

Mimesis by Nunzio Paci

Nunzio Paci, the latest recipient of an artist residency from Galerie Stephanie, a Philippine contemporary and modern art gallery, possesses a breathtaking ability to reconnect humans, flora and fauna.

As a culmination of his three-month stay, Paci, an Italian artist-anatomist, presented a solo exhibition titled Mimesis, an ancient Greek word that means “to imitate.” His works for this recently concluded exhibit were clean, bright canvases of mimesis, heavily dominated by Philippine flora painted in light pastel colors previously unknown to his body of work. There were several paintings, installations and eight works on paper. 

Paci was born in 1977 in Bologna, Italy and is classically trained in the fine arts. His preoccupation was not with the typically beautiful and seemed to obsess over “the thought of becoming seriously ill.”

The anxiety about his health (hypochondria) is what drove Paci to study diseases, generalized and pathological anatomy, and human, animal and comparative anatomy. As a result, his art — rigorously truthful to anatomic structure and combined with the various flora and fauna — is a way for him to exorcise the fears he lives with daily.

He uses graphite, colored pencils, oil and acrylic and draws human figures and/or animals with their internal structures exposed for all to see.

The maturity of his subject, as well as the extreme care with which he produces his works, has seen him exhibit around Europe, the US and Asia. Paci’s art has been shown at the historic Fogazzaro Palace, the Milan contemporary art gallery Officine dell’Immagine, the Museum of Contemporary Art in Sicily, and recently at Art Stage Singapore. His work recently appeared in Anatomy Rocks, a compilation of works of over 60 international anatomical artists including Mark Ryden and Damien Hirst. He has received six residency programs, with the three-month residency under Galerie Stephanie in the Philippines being his latest.

(Galerie Stephanie is located at Unit 1B, Parc Plaza Building, 183 E. Rodriguez Jr. Ave., C5, Libis, Quezon City. For inquiries, call 709-1488 or e-mail [email protected].)

(Follow me on Instagram @pepperteehankee.)