The artist Anamaria McCarthy dedicates herself to photography exploring metaphors about the human condition through the nude and self-portrait, exposing both its fragility and complexity, from its own embodiment. Thus, she uses her body as a support to portray the existential condition of women and the political-social circumstances that surround her.

In 2007, the artist traveled to Buenos Aires as a guest artist within the International Residency Program during the International Self Portraits Project, which in its 3rd edition was held at Proyecto´ace in Argentina. In this context, she meets a group of women artists from different countries who had traveled to produce their self-portraits within this international project. In these circumstances, the artist establishes links that will become a new project related to the theme of portrait-self-portrait, long explored in her work. McCarthy invited each of the artists to make a work using the skin of their own back as a canvas, while she, in turn, intervened and photographed the artists’ backs. Metaphorically similar, in concept and in the way of constructing visual discourse, to the cells of a honeycomb, this collective work was finally called La Colmena.

In this way, La Colmena (Beehive)is a collaborative creation project that brings together pairs of portraits in which Anamaría’s body is related, in some way, to the body of the artist whose skin intervened, and also with the artists they left behind. its imprint on Anamaría’s back. This double semantic game resulted in a polyphonic work that expresses the voices and bodies of the artists who participated in the project. La Colmena was part of the official exhibitions of We, you, they , Festival de la Luz / XV Open Encounters 2008 in Buenos Aires.

The work around Beehive (by Anamaría McCarthy)

The community of bees –the organization of their hives– is a classic benchmark for political theorists to describe models of organization of human society. In particular, I was always impressed by the behavior of the bees expressed in that particular language of the dance that consists of a personal choreography of the mother bee while searching for its location within the hive.

In 2007, at the Proyecto´ace in Buenos Aires, I offered a workshop on self-portrait. By a wonderful coincidence, I came face to face with a very diverse group of international artists—all women. After many years of working on the nude and self-portrait using my body as a support, I ventured to propose to them to share a unique experience, for them and for me. The project consisted not only of expressing themselves as painter or recorder self-portrait, after exploring their own hidden voices through unaccustomed means, but also expressing their language on a new medium… my skin. In turn, I photographically recorded their naked bodies.

Like some bees, we organize ourselves harmoniously in personal and private sessions, to privilege trust and maximize inspiration. That experience confirmed the existence of a series of hidden ties originating from our feminine condition. In some way, the expression achieved was realized as one who performs a choreography drawn on the nudity and intimacy of a shared dance… melee. The result of The Hive are the bodies, mine, theirs and ours.