From the Mexican barrios of San Antonio to the streets of Peru, the fantasy environments of salones de belleza, or beauty salons, are safe spaces for women to gather, gossip, and fantasize about personal beauty and seduction. Manicurists are the great storytellers of our culture, and they practice the most vernacular of painting styles. Originally an ancient form of expressionistic art, today the practice exists without borders and resonates with our Meso-American consciousness in beauty salons across both continents. The salon is where talk mixes with the painting of fingernails, with the painting of signs on windows and shop walls. It communicates a story, one that begins in the neighborhood of one’s upbringing but ultimately resurfaces everywhere we go.

Tremendo Manicure is an interactive multimedia exhibition by Panamanian artist Haydée Victoria Suescum that looks at the art of fingernail decoration at the local beauty shop. In her series of paintings, videos, and installations, she addresses the continuity of Latina beauty rituals and personal aesthetics. The centerpiece of the exhibition is an altar that celebrates outsider art: mundane household materials appear with mermaids with tremendous manicures in an dedication to beauty that is both sacred and profane. This dedication continues in the form of vibrant paintings that investigate the female beauty myth in ways that dazzle and entertain. High and low art, public and private, and Latina beauty ritual intermingle; absurd changes in scale, bright colors and a sense of humor rule. Painted in rough brush strokes, the images are framed by recycled plastics from children’s swimming pools, balloons and toys. Each plastic frame is inflated with the artist’s breaths and notated as an integral part of the materials for the piece, function as a metaphor for the unrelenting spirit that honors women’s devotion to beauty and the act of self-creation. At the same time, Suescum ironically contrasts women’s dreams of sophistication and glamor to their working class realities. At the core of her work is an earnest exploration of inventive forms of women’s beauty rituals.

Suescum takes us on an aesthetic journey through Latin America. Women’s beauty rituals—especially manicures and salon culture—are brought to light. Her work is inspired by hand-painted signs and the ways Latina women care for their fingernails, hair, and faces. The mermaid imagery incorporated in many of her works reminds us of the myths of creatures who, by their beauty, lured men to their destruction. They speak of women’s ties to nature, creativity, and mythological powers. In Tremendo Manicure, all notions of female beauty intermingle: European, Meso-American, mermaids and housewives.

This exhibition was organized by the Museo Alameda.