MAC Make-Up Art Cosmetics: Marilyn Minter

Linda Yablonsky: What attracted you to M·A·C’s Make-Up Art Cosmetics collection?
Marilyn Minter: The glamour industry is the central source for my art. I feed off it like a parasite! They need my eye; I need everything else from them.
Q: Especially the glitter eye shadow! Or was it the lipstick?
A: I did ask for lipstick but mostly to complement the eye makeup for the photograph. But I do wear blush and lipstick ninety percent of the time.
Q: You're primarily a painter who works from photographs. Did you paint your model's makeup for the M·A·C shoot too?
A: I work with a professional makeup artist named Rosina Harris and she applied the makeup perfectly.
Then I went in and messed it up – sprayed it with water and glycerin. I don't like to retouch or clean up freckles or sweat. I like things to be gritty. Retouched models don't look human. Every place I work commercially they airbrush everything. M·A·C doesn't do that. That's why I like M·A·C.
Q: You had the whole range of glitter pigments for fall. How did you decide on this particular pink
for your photo?
A: We played around to see what would work. We also tried different colours on each eye.
Q: You equate freckles with beauty?
A: Oh, yeah. I even think pimples are beautiful. I don't see them as disgusting. They're human.
Q: What did you mean when you said you went in and messed things up?
A: I exaggerate the look a bit. If the makeup artist puts on a lot of mascara, I add a bit more. I recently shot Julianne Moore, who has freckles that have faded or are always airbrushed out. I penciled them in more. If someone has a bit of mustache, I like to show it. I like to show things starting to fall apart.
Q: Your photograph for M·A·C is an extremely close close-up image of the model's eye. Did you shoot it that way or crop the photo?
A: I never crop. I shoot everything very close with a macro lens, and never use the whole of anything.
Q: How close can you get?
A: I shoot a foot or two away from the model's face, which means that when I look through the lens I get right into the pores. Close-ups are my specialty. They're what I love. When you get that close, you lose all the outside information. You can just look.

Q: What do you think glamour is?
A: It's relative. A fantasy of what everyone believes someone else is having but no one is really living. Makeup does start running, the heel of your shoe can really break, and your hem can come undone. You really only get a few hours when everything falls perfectly into place. The Duchess of Windsor had the soles of her shoes polished. That's obsessive. It's not real. Life is messy!
Q: Yet your photos are so glamorous.
A: It's the universal eye – a little messed up.
Q: Your paintings are based on digital combinations of your photographs, which you paint in enamel on aluminum, blending it with your fingers – the way a makeup artist does on a face.
A: It's the only way to do it.

The Marilyn Minter collection is all about sparkle and dazzle.

The collection features Reflects Glitter products in Reflects Copper and Reflects Rust
Glitter in Gold and Fuchsia
Pigments in Cocomotion, Brash & Gold, Heritage Rouge and Push the Edge.

Credit: MAC