Make-up artist faces flak online for turning white woman black

A Los Angeles based make-up artist is facing massive online flak after he posted an image of his work on Instagram, in which he turned a white woman into black through makeup.

While many people are known to be hooked on to make up tutorials online, social media users are having a meltdown of sorts. A Los Angeles based make-up artist is facing massive online flak after he posted an image of his work on Instagram, in which he turned a white woman into black through makeup.

While the artist, who goes by the handle paintdatface, seems quite popular on the photosharing site with over 66K followers, not many are pleased with his latest creation.

The makeup artist probably expected a backlash when he posted the image online and hence wrote quite a long and descriptive caption to go with it.

"This is a transformation that I've been holding back from releasing for a while now, solely because of the fear I've had of people turning it into a racial scandal against me," he had captioned the post, according to Independent. "THIS IS NOT ABOUT A RACE CHANGE. This is about one woman acknowledging, embracing, and celebrating the beauty of another woman's culture."

Though he may have clarified the purpose of the image and made his stand clear, numerous people have called him out of the insensitive post and said that he could have at least thought out his decision to put up the image.

While the post had now been deleted after numerous social media users slammed the make-up artist, some users did manage to get a screengrab of the same. After deleting the original post, the makeup artist wrote another lengthy post, in which he explained that while he did not mean to offend anyone and the idea came from a good place, he is not going to apologise to those who were offended.

REPOST @paintdatface ❤ ・・・ The transformation that I recently posted of a woman transformed into a woman of another culture has been highly criticized by those who don't understand the message. I deleted the post, not because I had regret or saw wrongdoing, but because of the negativity social media turned it into. It's been assumed by most that my intentions were to transform my model into a black woman. Truth is, my intentions were to keep the look vague enough to be relatable to many women of different cultures, but the true inspiration of the overall look came from my Cuban heritage. Although I am saddened by how many people are angered, I can't offer an apology for my artwork and for what I find to be beautiful. The transformation came from a place of love and was not about mocking one's race, but rather about celebrating it. I am so proud to be illustrating a woman representing several cultures along with their achievements, beliefs and histories. Art is interpreted differently by all and sometimes it's uncomfortable, but making this world a better place starts with our mindset - thinking positive, showing love and practicing unity.

A post shared by ANNA THORSELL (@annathorsell) on May 29, 2017 at 6:40pm PDT

"I deleted the post, not because I had regret or saw wrongdoing, but because of the negativity social media turned it into," he wrote. "Truth is, my intentions were to keep the look vague enough to be relatable to many women of different cultures, but the true inspiration of the overall look came from my Cuban heritage. Although I am saddened by how many people are angered, I can't offer an apology for my artwork and for what I find to be beautiful. The transformation came from a place of love and was not about mocking one's race, but rather about celebrating it."

The transformation that I recently posted of a woman transformed into a woman of another culture has been highly criticized by those who don't understand the message. I deleted the post, not because I had regret or saw wrongdoing, but because of the negativity social media turned it into. It's been assumed by most that my intentions were to transform my model into a black woman. Truth is, my intentions were to keep the look vague enough to be relatable to many women of different cultures, but the true inspiration of the overall look came from my Cuban heritage. Although I am saddened by how many people are angered, I can't offer an apology for my artwork and for what I find to be beautiful. The transformation came from a place of love and was not about mocking one's race, but rather about celebrating it. I am so proud to be illustrating a woman representing several cultures along with their achievements, beliefs and histories. Art is interpreted differently by all and sometimes it's uncomfortable, but making this world a better place starts with our mindset - thinking positive, showing love and practicing unity.

A post shared by Makeup + Hair (@paintdatface) on May 29, 2017 at 12:40pm PDT

Meanwhile, social media users have been lashing out at the makeup artist. "There's just no excuse for this bulls*** anymore or for people defending it as 'art,'" said a user, while another added: "Get a mixed model if you want to 'represent' many races. Gosh this this pretty much straight up black face how do you not understand that..? I understand taking risks for art but this is disrespectful to a number of people and you refusing to acknowledge that is very ignorant in my opinion."

However, there are a few appreciating the make-up artist's creation. "Y'all need to go find something more worthy to be overdramatic about. Drama seeking people these days you do great work man, glad you didn't apologize. You did nothing wrong. Fact, not opinion," said a user.