Hairchitects
Our hair is a very unique part of our appearance. It can represent all aspects of your personality. You could even say it's a status symbol. Because the hair thing, it's something that you and other people can see at a glance, like the clothes you're wearing, it's all effective self-expression. Each of us has a unique head of hair, whether it's long, short, straight, curly, coloured, natural, etc. We are born with 100,000 hair follicles. Each follicle contains between one and five strands of hair. And the time and effort we spend on it has created a global hair care market worth £60 billion, of which around £1.5 billion is spent on hair loss treatments -- four times what is spent on malaria research.
Hair is not just a part of how we look, but it is also very important in many cultures. For example, in the Chinese culture, hair is the best feature of a person. Even though modern Chinese people nowadays have many different hairstyles and people often change their hair colour, but people still see hair has something important. There is a special day on February 2(lunar calendar) called “Long tai tou”, people often have their hair cut on this day for the first time when a new year starts. I think hair is something that people care a lot about.
By surfing the internet, I find many artists who are talented and have worked with some formation of hair. Some of them are unbelievably amazing hair stylists and others use hair as materials to produce art, or they even use other materials to draw to produce artworks in the content of “hair”.
This exhibition is meant to promote hair art and let more people know the beauty of hair even when they are not growing on our heads.
No.1 Animal Hair Hat
Nagi Noda
Shot by Kenneth Cappello
Collection made between 2006-2008
Paris, France
Size unknown(no reference)
Nagi Noda was a talented Japanese artist, hairstyle designer and director. Noda is best known in the advertising industry for her 'Sentimental Journey' short film for the Japanese pop star Yuki, which featured many 'analog' clones of Yuki and was presented at Saatchi & Saatchi's 2006 New Director Showcase.
I was attracted by Noda’s works and her style and I could not grab my eyes away from them. They are way too delicate and I am impressed that hair can even form art in this kind of way.
Noda’s specialty was to make hair hats. She weaves seemingly ordinary hair into lifelike and storytelling pieces. This work of art to the right is a photography for Noda’s art. It is an interesting piece that seems to tell many stories. There are three birds flying out of the bird nest. A bear that is crawling toward the birds. And the egg the model is holding, looks like it has been fallen out of the nest. The knitted nest is sophisticated and unique.
I think this artwork is one of the best from all of Noda’s work. It transmits many details to the viewer, which allows the viewer to imagine for themselves the extended story and meaning of the work. From my perspective, the bear is hunting for food and it aims at the birds and the egg in the nest. As the bear is getting closer to the nest, the birds hear the bear and fly out of the nest. This can be shown through the wings of the birds. It gives me an idea that they are trying to escape. As the birds are in a hurry, the egg fall out. And it is the end of my version of the story, there are definitely many other stories that can be made from Noda’s art because all of her artworks are vivid and influential.
Combined with Cappello's excellent photography, this artwork is visually stunning. Both Noda's craftsmanship and the movement and light effect designed by Mark for the model make this work to carry a lot of value for learning and reference.
No.2 Hairy objects: Novel
Hongchun Zhang
2005
China
18’’ x 24’’
Hongchun was raised among artists, her studio has spanned from self-exploration to broader themes of gender and interculture, and more recently fairness, pluralism and unified social justice for the past twenty years. She combines traditional techniques with new concepts and draws on her own experiences in China and the United States. Both in form and process, her work has rich layers, a wealth of detail, the intertwined history of Chinese ink painting and the new forms of expression she encountered for the first time in the United States. The logo for Hongchun's work, which was developed during graduate school in the United States, is drawn in black and white charcoal with long hair. She uses blackheads to explore her identity as a woman, a mother and a Chinese person.
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Hongchun’s artworks do not use hair as materials but she employs the idea of hair into most of her works. Her sketch of hair on objects are smooth. When I was looking through her portfolio, I almost think she had sticked hair onto objects because it looks real. Every hair are separate clearly from other. There is no smudging and dirt. The drawings can be told that they are been drawn for hours, or days. Another thing that I like about Hongchun’s artworks is because we share the same identities. We are both female Chinese. I embrace that she is using materials like calligraphy ink. I think she is making it international, and creating modern western art from it is very cool. She also mentioned social justice in her biography. I think this makes me like her work more because she promotes positiveness to the world and pursue fairness in the society. I hope more people can see her work and her main idea.
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The idea of these graphite drawings and ink paintings is about humor, beauty and repulsion. To Hongchun, long hair not only looks beautiful, but sometimes it can be very unattractive in particular settings such as hair in the hamburger, egg, wineglass, cigarette, toothpaste and sink. He combines hair and daily used objects to evoke different feelings and emotions through a surrealistic approach.
No.3 Haircut 1
Erin Case
Collaborate with Andrew Tamlyn
2012
U.S.
11’’ x 9’’ x 1’’
This piece of art was randomly found by me on the internet. The hair in the image is something I really like. The braid is very loose and messy and it really looks like a bird nest, but I think the presence of it is natural and it is one of the state of hair I want to include in my exhibition as sometimes people leave their hair unbrushed and messy. It has a feeling of life. I hope to use this art to emphasize the main idea of my exhibition is to see different forms of hair from different artists. Erin’s collage is one of them.
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Both Erin and Andrew are individual artists. Andrew is great at taking beautiful scenic photos. His style is chill, comforting and peaceful. The colours in his photos are usually not bright, so that the saturation is low. Oppositely, Erin is a collage artist. She has made artworks in many different styles. The one on the left is in one of the collage that has created with messy hairstyles. I think she wants to contrast the messy hair with the wild nature views, which I think is very cool. When Erin and Andrew’s works clash together, it is harmonious. The photography gives the viewer a feeling of infinity and the messy hair gives it a boundary. The colour of the hair also matches the colour of the sand in the photo. It is amazing. I can probably stare at this artwork for quite a long time and feel