LEANN EDGHILL is more than just a make-up artist. The owner of Eyedentity has found a way to create beautiful faces using her skills as a fine artist.
Her love for art started when at eight years old she was inspired by a cousin, Jody Forte. She said she wanted to be like him and as a result she was good at it at school and opted to follow him into graphic design. However, she changed her mind after enrolling at Barbados Community College when she realised that visual art was her love.
At the time of the interview she was fully booked for Foreday Mornin’ and had five people scheduled for Grand Kadooment, for which she would be applying gems to their faces, eye shadow, eyelashes, and making sure their brows were on point.
“I started Eyedentity in 2012, 2013. I got started when I did my bachelor’s in fine art. Usually in our second year we have to pick a topic and do a whole series of art work based on it, So I chose make-up because I had an eye for it. My favourite company at that time was MAC. I wanted to do a bunch of paintings based off of make-up and why people like make-up and how beauty was.
“At first I was doing body painting and it didn’t really work out and I got introduced into doing make-up, finding reasons and why. The topic didn’t really actually work out for me and then I branched out into using Barbie as a way to express myself and that’s how I came about doing make-up,” she said.
Edghill explained that she did not start “pushing” the company until this year, previously treating her craft more as a hobby.
“Now I’m pushing it as a business because I realised I have a love and a passion for it. It is something I wanted to pursue from the time I left school.
“Actually, I wanted to leave school to go do it and this is the reason I didn’t register it last year. I wanted a certificate.
“I was so accustomed to this whole life of having a certificate and a degree to really push forward a business and I wanted to go to New York,” she said.
“The name of the company is Eyedentity and I want to push the eyes and I want to push my work instead of me so that when you see my work you know it’s me rather than seeing me and knowing it’s my work.”
Drawing inspiration from the things around her, Edghill noted that her aim is to please her customers, who have increased significantly after she started a Facebook page in addition to her Instagram page.
What she finds interesting about the eyes is “the fine detail” and this is where her love for fine art comes into play.
The 23-year-old businesswoman said: “I love detailed work. It is very relaxing; it reminds me of painting.”
What Edghill also does is think of “certain eye looks” and then figure out how she will execute them on “someone’s eye shape or body type or face to show what I’m trying to portray”.
She added that make-up was more than looking pretty – rather it was “to be you, to bring out you as an individual whether to gain confidence, show a brighter side of you or an element that someone has never seen before. A wow factor”.
As for her future plans, she said: “I want to try to learn all the different business aspects of running a business before I hire people. I plan to do business courses but right now my main focus is to go to Makeup Forever Academy to do a six-month course and learn that extra trade to add to my portfolio. I don’t just want to be known as a make-up artist; I want to be known as a fine artist.
“I want to merge the two of them together eventually. I want to do it as photography and a live performance.
“It is obviously going to take a lot of time to do because I usually paint in a simplistic format and I want to take my fine art aspect and do it with makeup.
“I paint in that pop art style – everything is very monochromatic and matted. I love that solid finish even though it doesn’t apply to my make-up. I don’t like cakey make-up; I like simplistic make-up. So, I want to merge that aspect that gives me that clean finish,” she explained. (GBM)
