SARA SHAKEEL // GLITTERING BEAUTY

This era is one overwhelmed by massive avalanches of images, where reality swiftly dissolves into pixels and endless scrolling. In this visual overflow, Sara Shakeel’s work emerges as a gesture of aesthetic redemption—a glimmer that revives wonder amid the excess. A self-taught artist and a pioneer in digital collage, Shakeel transforms the ordinary into a radiant vision of the extraordinary. Her aesthetic language—fusing the mundane with the unmistakable brilliance of crystals and diamonds—is a celebration of beauty in its most unexpected forms.

Images by Sara Shakeel © 2024

Texts & content curation by

Felipe Rodríguez-Mattern.

What began as a personal expression on social media soon evolved into a global phenomenon. Her interventions on photographs—hands, landscapes, scars, tears—elevate the everyday to the status of a jewel. With a style that oscillates between the dreamlike and the pop, Shakeel not only beautifies reality but also redefines it. Her work is a visual manifesto suggesting that light can emerge from the cracks and that human fragility can find its most exquisite ornament in art.

What began as a personal expression on social media soon evolved into a global phenomenon. Her interventions on photographs—hands, landscapes, scars, tears—elevate the everyday to the status of a jewel. With a style that oscillates between the dreamlike and the pop, Shakeel not only beautifies reality but also redefines it. Her work is a visual manifesto suggesting that light can emerge from the cracks and that human fragility can find its most exquisite ornament in art.

Shakeel’s creations resonate with contemporary sensibilities, especially in an era where the image is everything and the desire to re-enchant the world grows ever more urgent. Far from being a mere aesthetic of excess, her work is a form of resistance: in the face of reality’s harshness, the artist imposes splendor. There is a subtle reminiscence of *kintsugi*—the Japanese technique of repairing ceramics with gold—as if each of her pieces proclaimed that imperfection is nothing more than another form of radiance.

One of Shakeel’s most iconic projects is Glitter Stretch Marks, a series in which she adorns images of stretch marks with glitter and crystals, transforming what is commonly seen as an imperfection into a celebration of body beauty. This project, which went viral on Instagram, aims to promote body positivity and empower those struggling with self-image. In 2019, Reebok commissioned her for a body image awareness campaign, where she covered athlete Jamie Green’s muscles with Swarovski crystals—an example of her ability to intertwine art with powerful social messages.

Shakeel has also collaborated with prominent figures, including Chance the Rapper, for whom she designed the album cover for The Big Day. For this project, she created a physical CD encrusted with crystals, which was then photographed for the album’s artwork. Additionally, she was commissioned to create pieces for a pop-up exhibition accompanying the album’s release, where she adorned everyday objects—tables, chairs, and toys—with thousands of Swarovski crystals, crafting an immersive space that reflected the rapper’s life and personal experiences.

Sara doesn’t just transform images; she transforms perceptions. With her luminous and visceral language, she reminds us that the sublime is not confined to the unattainable realms of art but thrives, pulsing, in the smallest details of existence.

Sara Shakeel was born in Pakistan in 1989.

SARA SHAKEEL