#14 MAKEUP &THE ART OF BECOMING

All Eyes On > #14 MAKE UP & THE ART OF BECOMING

Red, Glitter, Honesty ... and Equanimity

James Mac

He/His

IG: jmac_mua 

Reading time: 7 min 17 sec

Speaking time: 11 min 33 sec

Some people enter your life gently. Others arrive in a full red silhouette in the middle of Piazza del Duomo on World AIDS Day and quietly rearrange your understanding of what it means to be courageous.

James Mac is that kind of presence.

Born in the west of Ireland, shaped creatively in London, and currently living in Barcelona, James is a queer makeup artist, a drag devotee, a storyteller, and a man living openly with Tourette’s syndrome. But if you expect a neat biography, you won’t find it here. His life unfolds like how identity often does, shifting across borders, disciplines, and versions of the self.

He grew up in the Irish countryside, where art was less a career plan and more a constant companion. Drawing, photography, film — he later studied multimedia and earned a degree in photography and film design. Creativity was always there, quietly anchoring him.

Tourette’s was there too.

From the age of four or five, motor tics began to appear, including blinking, neck movements, and repetitive muscle motions. Tourette’s syndrome is a neurological condition, and in James’ case, it manifests physically. The most prominent tic is a turn of his neck to the right. It fluctuates. It intensifies with stress. It softens with care.

For years, people saw the movement before they heard the explanation.

And layered into that was the experience of growing up queer — navigating school corridors, expectations, difference. Visibility is complicated when you are already standing out in ways you didn’t choose.

It wasn’t until his early twenties that James began speaking publicly about living with Tourette’s. Before that, he was managing it quietly, building coping mechanisms, learning how to exist in spaces that don’t always understand neurological differences. There’s a particular kind of resilience that grows from that: not loud, not dramatic, just steady.

After university, he trained as a makeup artist in Dublin and soon landed his first television job in London in 2018. Thrown into fast-paced sets and industry demands, he was, as he says, “training on the job.” London sharpened his technique and accelerated his career. It also deepened his relationship with identity.

Makeup stopped being only about beauty. It became about articulation.

Through drag and elevated artistry, James discovered new dimensions of his queerness. Colour became language. Texture became emotion. The face became a canvas not for disguise, but for truth. In a world that often asks queer people to tone things down, he leaned in.

Then came Glow Up.

The BBC competition series -later streamed globally on Netflix- searches for the UK’s next makeup star. James competed in Season Two. What millions of viewers saw was talent, vulnerability, and creative risk. What they may not have anticipated was his openness about Tourette’s.

During a David Bowie-inspired challenge, he spoke about living with the condition on national television. It was the first time he had articulated it so publicly. The show aired during the pandemic, and as the episodes rolled out, his inbox filled with messages from around the world. People living with tics. Parents of children newly diagnosed. Queer individuals who had never seen themselves represented in that way.

Visibility is reciprocal. When you dare to be seen, others recognise themselves in you.

Since then, James has used social media as an educational platform. His “Tourette’s Tuesday” series breaks down what motor and vocal tics are, how they fluctuate, what management looks like, and what myths need dismantling. He explains Tourette’s with warmth and wit. At one point, he described it like sending a text message with a few accidental typos. The message still arrives.

There is something disarming about the way he speaks: no self-pity, no spectacle. Just clarity. He talks about difficult days as openly as good ones. He shares that when stress heightens, his symptoms. He acknowledges that living with Tourette’s does not necessarily become easier, but it can become more manageable. The more tools you gather, the more language you find, the more compassion you extend to yourself, the steadier you become.

In an era where conversations about neurodivergence and nervous system regulation are expanding across cultures and platforms, James contributes not as a trend but as a lived experience. His advocacy is not abstract. It is embodied.

And then there was Milan.

On 1 December 2024, World AIDS Day, he stood in red among queer creatives and activists in Piazza del Duomo. Tourists circled the cathedral. Cameras clicked. The winter air carried both curiosity and scrutiny.

But queerness, as he defines it, is freedom. The freedom to personify your truth in a way that might embolden someone else’s. The freedom to commemorate those lost to the AIDS epidemic and to stand in continuity with those still here. It didn’t feel like theatre. It felt like alignment.

That day in Milan marked something else, too, a turning point.

Around that time, James was beginning to question the life he had built in London. The opportunities were abundant. The industry was vibrant. But his body was tired.

Tourette’s is sensitive to the environment and stress. And sometimes, when you are succeeding professionally, you don’t immediately notice how much you are sacrificing personally.

After eight years in London, James chose to move to Barcelona. It wasn’t an escape. It was a recalibration. He chose health over hustle, community over constant acceleration. In Barcelona, surrounded by fellow queer creatives, he found a rhythm that harmonised more naturally with his needs. The climate, the pace, the cultural openness, all of it influenced how he managed his condition and how he showed up for himself.

There is a particular courage in walking away from a city that validates you professionally in order to build a life that sustains you personally. “If opportunity doesn’t knock, you build the door,” he says. But sometimes building the door also means relocating the house.

Throughout all of this, Ireland, London, Milan, Barcelona, James speaks about happiness not as achievement, but as Equanimity: the balance between pleasure and pain. 

The understanding that joy and difficulty coexist. He has experienced severe tic episodes, physical injury, and overwhelming days. He has also experienced artistic triumph, chosen family, love, and visibility.

For him, happiness is peace of mind. It is present. It is knowing that hard moments pass, and that good ones do too, and that neither defines you completely. It is forgiving yourself for what your body does involuntarily and celebrating what your spirit does intentionally.

James does not ask for sympathy. He offers perspective. He shows that identity can be layered without being fragmented. That queerness and disability are not limitations but dimensions. That art can be activism. That vulnerability can be a strength.

He stands... in red, in glitter, in honesty.. and invites us to look again.

Not just at him.

At ourselves.