What happens when you fuse Hieronymus Bosch with 90s rave make-up?

When Yulia Plakhotnikova was conceiving her latest shoot she had two very distinct, yet equally intriguing, sources of inspiration: the paintings of Hieronymus Bosch and the homespun make-up styles of 90s rave girls. “The main idea was to explore how the traditional could blend with the futuristic,” says the Barcelona-based photographer. “We hope these photos will make people imagine things behind the luminous images, something mysterious and enigmatic.”

To create the beauty looks, Plakhotnikova teamed up with hair and make-up artist Anastasiia Babii who used felt to decorate the body. The aim, she says, was to bring an ancient and natural feel to the look while the synthetic colours of the material were chosen to create a contrast. “In the make-up, we used materials both for their intended purpose and completely unexpected ones – in search of new uses and new ways to express the mood,” says Plakhotnikova.

“For example, in the look with the long eyelashes, we were looking for a colour that would be unconventional and even strange to the usual face colour scheme, and with it the make-up artist emphasised the bruises under the eyes. But at the same time, she used eyelashes to compensate for something ugly with something beautiful, again, in the conventional sense.”

In another look, metallic silver was used in combination with a heavy black on the lips to give the model an otherworldly, alien appearance. “The main idea was to be simple but brave in the makeup and hairstyling process.”

Photography Yulia Plakhotnikova, hair and make-up Anastasiia Babii using ICON products by Mön ICON team, technical director K. Rodriguez, model Xintong Li @ unomodels.