Monica Crystal Ocegueda | Calladita Te Ves Más Bonita

Calladita Te Ves Más Bonita

Photography

Calladita Te Ves Más Bonita (2023) features Jessica Ontiveros-Stamps, who performs a silent yet powerful response to a common and harmful saying often directed at women: “You look prettier when you're quiet.” Jessica models with a self-written poem, expressed in eyeliner across her face, voicing her frustration with this phrase and encouraging other women to speak up.

In the first image, the words are written on her face as she remains silent, standing in front of a cactus, a powerful symbol in Mexican culture. Like the cactus, Jessica becomes a figure of resilience, the words on her skin representing thorns. In the second photograph, she begins to wipe the words from her throat, symbolically shedding those thorns, unafraid and unapologetic. By the third image, she wipes the words from her mouth while staring directly at the viewer or perhaps at the person who once silenced her reclaiming her voice. This act of defiance transforms the narrative, asserting that her beauty lies not in silence, but in her strength to speak.