Beard

During my masters, as I began to approach subjects regarding masculinities, I went through a phase where I denied my own. I leaned heavily on my failure to identify with all that traditionally defined a man. For a few months, I sought in vain for androgyny, shaving my beard and hair and experimenting with make up and what to wear. I say it was in vain because I was already turning thirty and the traits of a body made to be male were already hard to conceal. I could be a little less masculine, but I could hardly nullify that condition. In spite of these limitations, it was a delightful time of ambiguity, fluidity and uncertainty. Of being less manly, but by no means necessarily a homossexual. Of causing lots of questions in the minds of lots of people.

But that phase passed and, by the end of my masters course, I was back to cultivating a beard and admiting to myself that androgyny was not my way to go, neither aesthetically nor philosophically.

After that phase of denial, rooted in opposing all the masculinity I did not fit into, I began to search for cultivating the masculinity that interested me. And that was when, among other things, I developed an interest for masculine rituals. With shaving among them. In London, one could buy cheap shaving machines of a good quality in most street pharmacies. The first one I bought would go on to last for over ten years. But what really seduced me were the razorblades. Certain that I would never have the time or dedication for a proper razor, I chose one with disposable blades and began practicing that ritual twice a week. At first, my face came out a bloody mess. But practice gave me a steady hand and adequate lightness and I mastered the ritual in no time. And the products! All the different aromas in creams, balms, lotions and oils! A new universe in vanity that was for men only.

Years later, as I shaved in preparation for a fetish party in São Paulo (another habit I picked up in London...), I looked into the mirror at the nails I had painted recently, as part of my costume for that night. Suddenly I halted the blade. There was the androgyny waving at me once again. Not as the way and the truth this time, but as a spice of poetry on this ritual.

At the time, I wanted a reprieve from the hardcore gender activism. I felt I was becoming boring. So I began to make way for images like this one. Images that weren't trying to impose or affirm what a man was, nor point an accusing finger at injustices experienced or perpetrated by men. Images that existed only to amuse. Like slices of life in a Malcolm Liepke painting, for example. Paintings that were less pretentious and someone might someday acquire and hand on a wall.

Beard

October 2025

Oil on handcrafted paper and gesso over wood board and plastic frame

27.5 x 19 cm