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IDENTITY & BEAUTY

London as a Portrait of the World.

Identity & Beauty is an ongoing portrait project by British Kurdish artist Cemalettin Cinkilic (Cemo), begun in 2009.

For this project, I create hand-drawn portraits of people from different nations, minorities and stateless communities living in London.

The project has now grown to 207 individual portraits.

But this project is about more than 207 people.

It is about London.

London as a Portrait of the World

London is one of the world's great meeting places. People connected to different countries, cultures, histories and communities live alongside one another within the same city.

I began to see these individual portraits as something larger.

Each person is an individual face, with their own identity and story. Together, however, these faces form a collective portrait of the city.

I am not drawing the world in London; I am drawing London as the world.

Rather than portraying London through its buildings, landmarks or streets, Identity & Beauty portrays the city through the people who live here.

One Face at a Time

Behind each portrait is a human encounter.

The people I draw are real individuals whom I have met or who have connected with the project. Through the act of drawing, a simple meeting becomes a portrait, and an individual portrait becomes part of a much larger body of work.

Every face remains unique.

No identity is more important than another.

The project brings different identities into the same artistic space while allowing each person to remain themselves.

Identity & Beauty

For me, beauty is not only about physical appearance.

It can also be found in individuality, diversity and the recognition of another human being.

To look carefully at someone's face and draw it is an act of attention. To place that portrait alongside hundreds of other faces is an act of recognition.

The project therefore explores identity and beauty through the human face—and through the connections between people.

A Living Portrait of London

A city is never finished.

People arrive, leave, meet, form communities and change the places in which they live. London is continually being reshaped by the people who call it home.

For this reason, Identity & Beauty is not simply an archive of faces.

It is a living portrait of London.

One person at a time.

One face at a time.

207 portraits—and a portrait of a city.

One person. One face. One city. A portrait of the world.