The theme of hair interests me, as it's something that can define us and our appearance, that can represent different cultures, that carries our DNA, that can be seen as both disgusting and beautiful when placed into different contexts, and which can serve as a memento of a person
Physically, hair can also be interesting, with the many different options of style and colour, and different textures, lengths and smells.
Hair's fragility, how fine and breakable it is are also attractive to me. I have also always wanted a gorgeous long, thick head of hair, having thin and slow-growing hair myself, which may have something to do with my interest in it.
The Victorians used the hair of dead loved ones to create beautiful pieces of mourning jewellery- the hair was often put inside a locket but other times was woven into bracelets etc. They would also make pictures for the wall using the hair.
Looking at Victorian mourning jewellery was what inspired me to try working with hair.
Some examples:
American artist Melanie Bilenker is inspired by mourning jewellery and uses hair to draw pictures of mundane events-her work is small and usually in the form lockets, brooches,jewellery etc.
'Falling Asleep'
'Taking a Bath'
Artist Jodie Carey uses small amounts of human hair in her paper wreaths of flowers, which feel like they also fit into the theme of mourning.
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